Season 10: Episode 3: The Reaper
by Jenthewarrior
Summary: While visiting the Scully family on Christmas, Mulder and Iden stumble upon a weathered treehouse with a mind of its own.
1. Chapter 1

**Previously on X-Files…**

 **Episode 1:** **The Meadow:** While investigating a massive cave system in Kentucky, Mulder falls victim to a poltergeist that once haunted a French exploration team.

 **Episode 2: The Sight** : Mulder and Scully face off against an alien parasite who feeds on the psychic abilities of others, namely the local children.

 **Episode 3: The Reaper:** While visiting the Scully family on Christmas, Mulder and Iden stumble upon a weathered treehouse with a mind of its own.

 **XxX**

 **EPISODE 3: THE REAPER**

 **Chapter 1.**

 **December 23, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

Fox Mulder played the drums on the notebook in his lap, occasionally twisting to point his pencil at the toddler in the row next to his. She was thrilled. Waiting for him to point at her put a cork in her constant crying. Occasionally her older sister peaked around their sleeping mother to smile at him, pulling her pink headphones off to listen to his unusual beat.

He had developed a healthy loathing for flying. He had only been on this plane for a few hours, but the bumps and shakes reminded him too much of being on a boat. He was airsick. It didn't help that their destination was less than desirable. He was not on good terms with Scully's older brother, Bill. He was a traditional thinker and he thought Mulder had corrupted his sister – his sister that he pretended was so precious to him, but who he rarely called or visited. Mulder disliked him on principle. Knowing that he had to get off of this plane and play nice gave him another reason to hate flying. It gave him a reason to fantasize about grabbing the emergency door and twisting that bright red handle.

"Did you know that otters link arms when they sleep?" Iden nudged his shoulder, showing him a picture of two otters holding hands while they floated at the surface of a lake. "It keeps them from drifting apart, kind of like when you tie my tube to your tube."

Mulder smiled, pointing out another fact on that page. "Gross. Giraffes clean their noses with their tongues, and they drool a _lot_."

She made a face. "You _would_ point that one out."

Mulder made sure his little charge had an endless library of information, from animal facts to evolutionary theory. She never stopped searching for things to learn. Ever since her adoption had become official in October, she made it a point to be smarter. She insisted she was going to be just like him – a fountain of random knowledge. She was only nine, but she was on the road to success.

"I have one for you." Mulder sat up a little, shutting her book. "The Ichneumon looked a lot like a mongoose. Do you wanna know what made it special?"

Her eyes sparkled. "What?"

"It was a dragon slayer. Legend says the ichneumon would cover itself in mud and crawl into the nostrils of a dragon, and then burrow out, killing the dragon."

Scully sat up and popped him on the arm. "Mulder!"

"One more! Before we land!" Iden looked between them, turning her sad eyes on Scully. " _Please_. You said we couldn't talk about this stuff when we were there and we're not there yet!"

Scully sighed. "One more. Just keep it on the plane. I told you how your uncle Bill is."

"Sceptic," Iden said, popping her lips.

Mulder winked at Scully, making sure she knew he was the one who had fed that word to the little girl, and then he started in on another story. "Romania was where the Dracula legend came from, but it's also the origin of another vampire-like creature called the Strigoi."

Scully cocked an eyebrow. "The _Strigoi_?"

"Legend says the Strigoi is a single demonic creature, a troubled soul trapped and searching for blood to bring itself back to life." He took the book from Iden and flipped through it, stopping on the image of a gray wolf. "Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the Strigoi – it could become invisible, or change into an animal at will. Romanians once believed that the wolves roaming the countryside had a Strigoi among them, and when the creatures raided the villages, the Strigoi took people out of their beds, becoming a little more powerful every time he fed."

Iden gazed at the wolf, running her finger down its flank. "Wow. Did it really exist?"

He shrugged. "Could have. It faded into legend. But that doesn't mean it wasn't real."

"I should have left you in Virginia," Scully muttered, returning to her novel.

Mulder nudged her arm. "Come on. You love telling me I'm wrong."

"You're wrong."

He smiled at her, fiddling with her sleeve. "I already told you I wouldn't bring it up around Bill. What more do you want from me?"

She looked up sharply, about to say something, but she let it go. She smiled again and took his hand, leaning down to kiss his knuckle. "Just try to be nice to him. I know you two don't get along, but it's almost Christmas. And Charlie is going to be there. I haven't seen him in over a decade."

"Why is that, anyway?"

"He moved away. He just stopped calling after a while. I think his wife and my mom got into it."

"And now he feels like reconnecting?"

"He wants to meet Iden." Scully smiled proudly at the little girl, fluffing up her hair. "I told him how special she was, and he just had to come out to meet her."

Iden grinned, flipping through her book to find the page she had stopped on. Scully meant it when she said Iden was a special little girl. She had come into their lives when they moved to Wayfield, watched over by her eccentric older sister, Deloris, who turned out to be an alien. She was one of the first he had really gotten to meet, and the first he had befriended. She had been drawn to Iden for her psychic abilities – the thing that made her _really_ special. Mulder could tell Scully was nervous about her abilities. Her brother would never understand something like that.

Mulder kept his thoughts to himself, smiling whenever Scully brought up something else about Bill and the kids. She tried to impress their names on him, but he got them all mixed up. She gave up when the plane began to descend, assuring Iden that she would love her new cousins.

He was not so sure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

 **December 23, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

It was a remarkably cozy home. Scully was so accustomed to her sparsely decorated, often messy house that she felt a little barbaric in such a beautiful place. The fireplace was lit, the walls were covered in family photos, the mantle was lined with trophies, the carpet was plush and stainless, and the couch had embroidered pillows on either arm. It was straight out of a catalogue, bathed in the warm glow of the fire, filled with the laughter and thrumming of children running around. It reminded her of painful dream she sometimes had – of what their life would have been like if she had never let go of William, and settled down in the suburbs.

Despite its warmth and style, the house was missing some things. Mulder like to stash little green alien figurines everywhere, hoping to bug Scully and fascinate Iden when they found them. Iden liked to put her stuffed animals on the couch at night so they could keep watch. Frankie left dusty paw prints from the front door to the back door at least once a week.

Her partner did not take much of an interest in the house. He looked bored the moment he got there. He had his arms crossed and he looked around with one lip poked out defiantly. It would have been cute if he wasn't doing his best to annoy her brother.

"I love your hair like that." Tara had been talking almost nonstop since their arrival. She disliked the silence. "I want to grow mine out. I just get so irritated with it."

Scully did her best to listen, and manage her exhaustion, and bounce a two-month-old in her arms to keep him from crying. Five minutes in the door and she had snatched her youngest nephew from his father. He had eyes like hers – impossibly blue – and sometimes he tried to smile. She was immediately captivated by him because he looked so much like William. It brought back aching memories of a time when she held her son, and though it stung, she continued bouncing him. Sometimes the best, sweetest memories hurt like a knife in the gut.

"Uh, yeah. It bothers me sometimes too." Scully twisted her head, throwing her hair back over her shoulder. She took a quick step to the right to avoid a parade of children running through the room. "It might take me a while to get all their names right."

Mulder, finally finding amusement, bopped each one on the head as they passed. "Easy. This one is Dopey… Sleepy… Blondie… Jon Bon…"

From the kitchen doorway, Bill did his best impression of a constipated congressman, giving a half-laugh and looking away. Scully could sense his irritation. She got closer to Mulder and muttered under her breath, "Stop waving the red blanket."

He made an innocent face and shrugged.

Charlie came back into the living room, diffusing the tension. He threw his arms around Scully from behind and stared down at the baby, wrinkling his nose. "Bill, you really outdid yourself. You really outdid mom and dad. You really outdid that one family on TV with twelve kids."

Tara retrieved the baby from Scully and set him in the little crib in the corner. "Colton is probably going to be our last. He has to share a room with his brothers as is."

Charlie moved on to Bill. "No, no, guys, trust me. You need to have at least six more." He patted the doorframe, talking over his shoulder into the kitchen. "I finally teased the demon out of the car, by the way. Sarah! Come on in. Remember our deal."

Sarah was her niece, and until now Scully had only seen pictures of her. Charlie lived in New York and had only gotten full custody of her a year ago, when her mother was sent to prison. The girl stepped reluctantly into the spotlight and smiled hesitantly at the ground. She had the same pale red hair as her father, and if she would have looked up for more than a few seconds at a time, it would have meshed well with the green in her eyes. She reminded Scully of her own father. He would have been so proud to see them all gathering like this on Christmas.

Charlie wrapped his daughter up in a hug and shook her, evoking a giggle. When he set her down she skittered away, heading straight upstairs.

"Give her a few minutes to warm up." Charlie was smiling hard, watching the stairs where she had disappeared. It was easy to see how much he loved that little girl. It was the same way Mulder looked at Iden, and the same way Bill looked at his kids. He shook it off, waved toward the kitchen, and cleared his throat. "Are we eating, or what? I mean, I like you guys, I really do, you're the best family a guy could ask for, but the food is prettier."

Scully could tell why Charlie had kept his distance from the family now that she was near him again. He had adopted an easy New York attitude and his accent had changed completely. He seemed happy and carefree despite the problems he was having at home. It would have driven her father crazy. He believed in a very serious, stoic front for men. Bill was his carbon copy, and if anything, Charlie was his foil. Scully actually preferred to be around Charlie now, because he was a lot like Mulder. He was easy to talk to, easy to love.

"I'll go check on the kids. You guys go ahead." Bill went for the back door, avoiding the little girl who was making laps around the island in the kitchen. She was too young to be allowed outside with the bigger kids, so she was making her own entertainment.

Mulder edged closer to Scully, nudging her arm. "Say you have a headache. Pretend to faint. Do something. Get me _outta here_."

She elbowed him. "Hush. You should count yourself lucky Tara cooked all this food."

"Lucky that you didn't cook it?"

She glared at him.

Mulder skirted around her, grabbing a plate. "You said it, not me."

Tara appeared again, haunting Scully with her perky voice. "He is something, isn't he? You know, Bill has been dreading having him over, but I think he's charming."

Scully snorted despite herself, throwing her hand over her mouth. Mulder cocked an eyebrow, pausing midway through dumping a load of casserole on his plate. She turned to face Tara, trying to control her smile. "Oh, he is. Just don't tell him that. I'll never hear the end of it."

"Consider it our little secret."

"What's your little secret?" Mulder approached, shoving ham in his mouth and hovering over her shoulder. "I'm great at keeping secrets."

Tara laughed, and Charlie gave a husky chuckle from the dining room. Scully was relieved to see things going so well. Bill was being grumpy, but the others seemed charmed by Mulder. She just had to keep all of their conversations dull and normal, and Christmas would pass smoothly. Mulder had promised not to let her down. He knew how much this meant to her.

The adults stood around in the kitchen, holding their plates despite having a perfectly good dining room table not ten feet from them. They carried on conversations about the city, and about their lives, and about the horde of children running around. Scully gushed about Iden and how well adjusted she was, leaving out her nightmares, and her trouble in school, and how much nonsense Mulder had taught her about things that go bump in the night. Bill relaxed enough to bring himself to clasp Mulder on the shoulder as he passed by. He went out back to watch over the kids, and Tara started listing all the reasons Colton would be her last child.

Mulder kept nudging her, giving her the 'you're next' eyebrows, and she meandered between irritation and amusement. Charlie found every opportunity to capitalize on it. He prodded them about their life, about their past in the FBI. He did not conform to the same polite social context that Tara did. He was not afraid to probe. Scully didn't mind. She liked listening to him.

XxX

Even the bathroom was decorated. Mulder grimaced at the clam-shaped soap, wondering how they could afford so many luxuries. He could practically see himself in the reflective sink, the toilet had sprayed him without warning, and somehow, magically, all the bath toys were put away in a neat little bin hanging over the bathtub. It was pure sorcery. He was sorting through the action figures, avoiding going back out to the soul-sucking conversation in the kitchen, when he heard chains grinding against each other on the other side of the bathroom window.

Mulder stopped to listen, curious, and then pulled the curtains and blinds back to see the back end of the front porch swing moving past him. The chains were making a terrible squeaking sound. The little redhead Sarah was swinging alone, with no other kids in sight.

He saw it as the perfect distraction.

The front porch wrapped around half of the house, with low railing and rocking chairs to give it the appearance of an old southern plantation. The swing was suspended from the ceiling, clustered with two rocking chairs to make a little pod around a miniature fire pit. Mulder took one of the chairs and watching the little girl kick off, taking the swing a few steps higher than it was meant to go. Iden liked to do that at home.

Sarah looked at him strangely, slowing her swinging, and played with the oversized sleeve of her sweater. "Sorry."

He shrugged. "What for?"

"I was being loud."

"So?"

She was going to say something, but she shut her mouth, looking out at the yard. She was not overly fond of eye contact, or socializing.

He reminded her of Iden when they first met. She had been such a quiet girl, afraid to cause a stir. Now she was a holy terror who stood up for herself and took crap from no one. He wondered if Sarah had someone in her life who got angry is she was too loud, and he wanted to be nothing like this theoretical person. "How old are you?"

Sarah looked up. "Fourteen."

"Matthew is your age, then. Why don't you hang out with your cousins?"

She frowned, and almost teared up. "They think I'm weird."

"They don't think that."

"Matthew told me!"

Mulder had suspected the other children would ostracize Iden because she was adopted, or because she could be a very strange little girl, but she had been playing with them since they got there. It was a relief. She was often shunned at school. Sarah was shy and reserved, clutching at her own sleeves and apologizing for making noise – the more confident Matthew would eat her alive. It was just something kids that age were compelled to do.

"Why would he say that?"

"I don't know. Because I am."

"Did your dad tell you anything about me before you guys got here?"

She shrugged. "No."

"What about your uncle Bill? Did he tell you anything?"

"He said you were weird and not to listen to you."

Mulder snorted. "That is completely true. But I can promise you that there is nothing wrong with being weird. You should never be ashamed to be different. Dana loves me despite my… er, flaws. Some people will never understand, but some people will. Do you have any friends back home?"

"I did… Henri."

He sensed a tremor in her voice. "Oh. Did something happen…?"

She looked at him, her eyes glistening, and then got out of the swing, leaving it to jerk around erratically for a few moments. She changed the topic expertly. "Since you and Dana are together, does that mean you're my uncle?"

Mulder gave his best vague shrug. He let her switch subjects, not wishing to pour salt in her wounds. "Who knows?"

"Well, I'm okay with that. I like you better than Bill."

Mulder felt a little stab of satisfaction at having successfully converted his first family member. He got up, stretched, and nudged her toward the door. "I think we should stop avoiding everybody now. We might both get in trouble."

XxX

Over an hour into a conversation about different types of roasts, Scully heard shouting from outside. Bill was yelling. She looked around for Mulder, her skin prickling, and then rushed out the back door. She could feel their peaceful evening melting away with every step.

Bill was standing among the kids. He had been yelling at Iden. She was looking up at him, her little lip trembling, and when she saw Scully come out she rushed into her arms and clung to her. Scully barely had a moment to think. She stroked the girl's hair, stared at her brother, and tried to demand an explanation. Her mouth did not have time to form the words.

Mulder came from the front yard, walking right past her and coming chest-to-chest with Bill. He was practically spitting with rage. "What the hell was that about?"

Bill was far from intimidated. He shoved Mulder back a few feet, but didn't attack. Scully was holding her breath. The other kids were gathering behind their father, looking curious and afraid. Only little Oliver, an eight-year-old, seemed to know what was happening. He had his hand on his mouth, eyes wide, and he stared at the two men guiltily.

"I knew it would only be a matter of time before you started spouting your conspiracy theories!" Bill thundered, "You tell her to keep them to herself!"

Mulder was furious. Scully had not seen him that angry in a long time. She was angry too, but it was different for him because he already disliked Bill. He thought he was close-minded and domineering. And the trembling girl clinging to Scully was his _baby_. He spent every day with her. He was very protective.

"She's a _child_! She doesn't understand how to interact with close-minded dickheads yet!"

"Mulder!" Scully wanted to grab him and reel him in, but Iden was holding her tightly. She looked desperately back at the doorway, where Tara was staring, shocked, and Charlie seemed to want to take action. "Stop them!"

Bill advanced, puffing up like he was going to hit Mulder, but Charlie jumped between them. He put his hands on his brother's shoulders. "Hey, whoa. There are kids here. Do you really want to do this? Look, your new niece is crying, your kids are all scared – I think you did more harm than good here."

"Oliver thinks aliens are going to hurt him!" Bill growled.

Mulder did not let up. It was like he wanted to fight. "Well maybe if you told him the truth instead of denying it, he would understand that they don't." He refocused on the little boy, his voice softening. "Nobody is gonna hurt you, little man."

Bill huffed, jerking away from Charlie. "Don't talk to him. Dana, I think it's time for you guys to leave." He seemed deathly serious for a moment, but when he looked back at her, and saw the devastation in her eyes, he frowned. "We'll see you on Christmas Eve."

She was relieved that this was not a permanent banishment, and frustrated that he had yelled at her daughter, and upset with Mulder for escalating the situation so much, and mad at herself, for thinking the two of them would get along for more than a few hours, even if it would make her intimately happy. She was so disappointed she didn't even look at Mulder as she made her way to the car. She held Iden by the hand, and smiled faintly at Tara as she passed, but ignored whatever he tried to say to her. She didn't want to answer him now. She would say something venomous.

Scully sat in the driver's seat, waiting patiently for her family to get in. She held out her hands for the keys and Mulder surrendered them. He watched the side of her face, thoughtful, coming down from his anger, and decided against trying to talk again.

She was glad.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: AmayaBlack yes Bill can be bracing! I have an uncle just like him :)**

 **XxX**

 **Chapter 3.**

 **December 23, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

"Is she mad at me?"

Mulder peaked at her over his cards. "No."

"I think she is."

"Dana is mad at me, not you."

"Why is she mad at you?"

He had been avoiding the topic of their catastrophically terrible dinner with the Scully family. Scully had been lying on their bed, reading a novel with her eyebrows cocked irritably since they got to the hotel. But she was gone now. She went out to dinner with the ladies, just her, Tara, little Melissa, and the only other family member who still liked him, Sarah. Iden was supposed to go, but she chose to stay, and Scully barely argued. Her mind was elsewhere.

Mulder could see how Iden could interpret that wrong.

"Mad was the wrong word. I think she's more… disappointed. With me, not with you. I should have diffused the situation, but I just antagonized it."

Iden drew a card, stared at it thoughtfully, and then discarded it. She kept her eyes carefully away from him while she spoke. "Sorry I told them. We were all telling scary stories and Matt told one about a scary treehouse and it made me think about that alien you told me about that-"

"It doesn't matter. It's not your fault."

"But I-"

"All you did was tell a story. You should never get yelled at because of that. Bill was way out of line." He mimicked her actions, discarding the card he drew. It was perfect for his hand, but he thought she deserved to win tonight.

Iden picked up the card he put down. "Why was he so mad?"

"Some people think stories are powerful… and they think if their kids hear them, they'll believe something that contradicts what their parents have taught them." He waited, wondering if she got that explanation, and then tried to simplify it. "Bill doesn't believe in the supernatural, or the unexplained. A long time ago Dana almost died because of something we didn't understand. I think he was just scared that letting his kids hear those kinds of stories might hurt them one day."

Iden nodded, sitting back in her chair. It creaked and wobbled. "Do you think Dana will stop being mad at you when she gets back?"

"I hope so, but I doubt it."

"I can help. She still likes me."

Mulder snorted. "I'll keep that in mind. What do you want for dinner?"

" _Hmm_. Pizza! When we were telling stories – remember? – Thomas made up a pizza monster and it made me really want-"

Her sentence dropped off. It was like a scene had been paused in her head. Mulder was on his feet in an instant, and in the seconds it took him to get to her side of the table, her wide, dilated eyes were darting around rapidly. Her mouth closed with an audible pop.

She stared at him. "Fox?"

He grabbed her and set her on the corner of the bed. Since taking the girl in, Mulder and Scully had been treating her spontaneous psychic visions like sudden seizures. Sometimes she hit the floor. Sometimes she vomited. Sometimes she started crying. Most of them were random glimpses of things she could barely describe, some were intense feelings, and some were entire days in the lives of people she had never met, played through her mind in a matter of minutes, absolutely purposeless. But every time, no matter what she saw, his heart raced. He feared for her.

It seemed innocuous this time, but she still wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for a few moments, steadying herself. She whispered, "Can we go get it?"

"Get what?" Mulder drew away. "What did you see?"

Iden blinked. "A kite. Can we go get it?"

It was not an easy task to translate the visions of a child. Mulder glanced at the window, shaking his head. "It's nighttime. What kind of kite? Where is it?"

"In the woods, at the park. No. Near the park." Iden slipped away from him, shrugging on her coat and boots. "Come on! We have to go get it!"

"No. It's freezing outside and it's dark."

She stopped what she was doing, staring him down in a moment of clarity. "I know that. But the kite is barely hanging on."

"You're not making any sense."

"You never make sense!"

Fair point. "Iden, we're not going to the park."

She threw the door open, not looking back at him, speaking matter-of-factly. "If she touches it she'll never get away!"

Mulder followed her, barely having time to grab his coat on the way out. He really didn't want to pick her up and carry her back to the room, but if she kept going, it might have to go down like that. Her words piqued his interest, so he let her go, following her closely down the stairs and out the back exit, right past their rental car. She didn't even look at it.

"Wait, wait." Mulder caught her before she stepped out of the parking lot, and into the little wooded area that separated them from an expansive suburb – where Bill and his family lived. His wife had mentioned a park nearby.

Iden tried to squirm out of his grasp. "No! We have to get the kite!"

"Just stop and explain this to me. Explain it to me. I always explain myself to you, right? It's only fair. Tell me what you saw."

"And then we can go get the kite?"

"We'll see."

She made a face, but obliged, speaking rapidly. "I saw the kite. It's red. Its hanging in the tree."

"Okay. Red kite. What else?"

"I don't know. I mean, I know, but I don't know. It's not a picture. It's a feeling. If she touches it… she'll never get away."

"Who? Who is she? Get away from what?"

"I don't know." She squirmed again, twisting her wrist around. "I have to get it before she does! Something terrible is going to happen! Let me go!"

" _Stop_." He held firm, dragging her back across the parking lot. When she dug her feet in, he threw her over his shoulder. She let out a short scream, forcing him to put her back down, lest the cops come and accuse him of kidnapping. She tried to make a break for the woods, but he got the back of her coat and pinned her to the car.

Iden twisted around and tried to bite him.

"Hey! You little cannibal. I just want you to stop so we can get the flashlight. Unless you want to stumble around in the dark looking for a red kite."

Iden calmed a little, eyeing him. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. I trust your instincts. Except for the biting, maybe. Did Dana teach you that?" He unlocked the car, grabbed the flashlight from the back floorboard, and showed it to her. "See? I threw it back there when we got the car."

"Why?"

"You never know when you'll need one." He tucked it into his pocket, and then pulled her hood up over her head. "Come on. If we're doing this, we're doing it now. It's freezing."

Iden's eyes lit up. "And then we can get pizza!"

Being so young, and so burdened by her abilities, her priorities were a little mixed up. Mulder could only smile, glad she retained her childishness despite the foreboding things she saw.

"Yes. Pizza after. Let's go find a red kite."

Mulder found himself dialing on his way through the woods. Scully didn't answer. He wasn't sure if she would approve of their mission. It seemed like something she would call absurd, but she knew firsthand how accurate Iden's visions could be. Iden had helped her save the life of a local teenager after seeing a vision of her ex-boyfriend trying to kill her. Her words about the kite, and the person who would never escape if she touched it, were vaguer, but Mulder had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

If it had the potential to save a life, to stop something awful from happening, he had to go for it.

But the night only got colder, with no sign of the kite she had seen in her vision. Iden led him around and around the woods, sometimes making big circles, sometimes pausing to stare thoughtfully at the black sky. She moved steadily from frustration to devastation, and from a little chilly to trembling. He called off their search after an hour.

"There really was a kite," Iden insisted. They were on a sidewalk in suburbia and she was backlit by a towering street lamp.

He was holding her hand, weary of letting the energetic little girl loose in the dark, and he could feel her shaking. She was cold enough for her teeth to chatter, but still she insisted on the validity of her vision. He had never doubted it.

"We can look again in the morning, when it's warmer."

"Good. We have to find it before she does."

XxX

Scully could have cut the tension with a knife. Somehow, in a crowded restaurant with loud families and laughter, their table remained eerily silent. She barely knew Tara and holding a conversation with her was hard – they were too different. Sarah had chosen to sit with Scully, probably because she had taken a liking to Mulder earlier that day, but she was not overly familiar with either of her aunts, so she kept to herself. Melissa was beside her mother, unfamiliar with Scully and her cousin. She was a year older than Iden and terribly shy.

She wished she had convinced Iden to come, to provide an icebreaker for everyone. She was a lot like Mulder in that she could make friends anywhere.

When dinner was over, they hovered outside of the restaurant, watching the city lights flash and listening to the hum of evening crowds as they navigated the sidewalks. San Diego was very loud compared to their country home in Virginia. It was something Scully didn't miss. She had grown accustomed to the birds singing.

Melissa bounced around. "Mommy, I have to pee."

Tara glanced around, sighed, and opened the restaurant door again, smiling at the people who filed out. "We'll be right back!"

Scully checked her phone, rolling her eyes at a missed call from Mulder. As much as she hated this awkward outing, she didn't want to talk to him right now. She would say something mean. He would retort. They would fight, and nothing good would come of it. She needed time to cool off from his little encounter with her brother.

But he was at the hotel with Iden, and where that little girl was involved, she needed to know that everything was okay. She was dialing his number when Sarah sniffled.

She had a tear on her cheek.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Scully circled her to get a better look at her expression. Her lip was trembling. "Hey. Talk to me. What's going on?"

Sarah sniffled again. "Nothing."

"It looks like something to me."

"I was just… It looks like New York. With all the lights." She waved her hand at the cityscape rolling out before them. "I was just… I had a friend who really liked the lights."

Scully didn't miss the past tense. "You miss them, huh?"

"All the time." Sarah wiped her face, folding her arms protectively around her torso. "I don't wanna talk about her."

"It might make you feel better."

"It's pointless." Sarah looked away.

Before Scully could say anything, the door opened and Tara returned. She joined them, smiled, and watched for her daughter, making the occasional comment about the freezing temperature. Sarah edged away from them, seeming to want to be in her own little world, and Scully wondered if she would be alright. She also wondered about Mulder. He had only called one time, so it couldn't be anything too serious. She would just ask when she got back.

It was a quiet ride to the hotel, where Tara dropped both Scully and Sarah off. Charlie was staying a few floors up from them. Scully walked her right to the door, hanging out in the doorframe after she knocked. Sarah was avoiding eye contact.

When the door opened, Charlie beamed at them. "Selling girl scout cookies? I want three boxes of everything. No, four. Wait… wait… Seven."

Sarah smiled at him – a rare expression that night – and pushed passed him into the room. Scully smirked. "How did your second dinner go?"

"Better than the first, considering the faceoff, but still a little lacking in the cheer department." He cracked the door and stepped out with her, mimicking her position on the other side of the doorframe. "I love Bill, but the guy has got to learn to loosen up."

Scully shrugged.

"Look, don't be too mad at Mulder. It's a dad thing. We have to protect our daughters. I don't even think it's a choice. It just happens."

"There were better ways to-"

"Yeah, yeah. So he made a bad choice."

"Why are you defending him?"

"Sarah told me how much she likes him. And I know you like him, being with him for so long. So don't let Bill get to you. Enjoy your Christmas, regardless."

"Are you the ghost of Christmas Past?"

Charlie smiled, reaching over to give her a brief bear hug. "I want to make s'mores later tonight, if you guys wanna come up with Iden. I figure us east-coasters should stick together."

"Sounds good. Oh, and were we doing anything tomorrow, for Christmas Eve?"

"Don't think so. But if you wanna group up and go sightseeing, I'm in."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4.**

 **December 23, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

It was late, and snow poured past the window, illuminated by the street lamps outside and glowing white like tiny fireflies. Mulder was enchanted by it, so caught up in watching it fall that he burned three marshmallows in a row, and was banned from holding his fourth over the fire. He let Iden hold it for him, going to sit by the window to stare out at the street, at the forest, wrapped up in this lovely sense of wonder that had been evading him for months.

But what brought it on?

He frowned, conflicted. He had gone out into the woods with Iden earlier to search for a red kite, something from a vision of hers, but all they found was cold. He had only felt tired then, maybe a little frustrated, a little curious, but not like this. He could barely describe the glee in his heart.

"Do you see the kite?" Iden asked him hopefully from the fireplace.

Charlie looked up, in the middle of wedging a marshmallow between two graham crackers. "Did you lose your kite, Iden?"

"No." Iden withdrew her metal skewer from the fire, testing the marshmallow at the end with both fingers, and then holding it over the flames again. Sitting so close to the fireplace, her skin turned bronze, and Mulder wondered if the sleeve of her nightgown would catch fire.

"We didn't bring a kite." Scully looked up from the bed, where she was painting Sarah's fingernails with five different, vibrant colors. "What are you talking about, Iden?"

"I saw a kite, in my dream," Iden said, dancing around the words Mulder had taught her to avoid, like 'vision.' She was doing her best to talk to Scully without revealing what she meant to her new uncle and cousin, but it only made them more curious.

Mulder intervened, dragging himself away from the window. "We went looking for it in the woods, but it was too dark out. We're going again in the morning."

"Can I come?" Sarah asked.

Charlie frowned, uncertain, and looked at his sister.

Scully had both eyebrows up. "It's too cold to go wandering around in the woods."

"It was fine, we both wore coats," Mulder defended.

She gawked at him. "Mulder, you-"

"Enough," he snapped, in a tone he had never expected to hear from his own mouth. He sounded strikingly like Bill, and even with that realization, the words just kept coming. "I know what you want to say, but you can stop. I get it. You're the responsible one."

His head felt fuzzy, and the room felt stuffy all of the sudden. He got up, brushing past Scully, who had stood up at his loud challenge, and went into the hallway. It seemed bigger than before, spacey, with rounded corners, but the air was clearer. His skin flushed. Mulder pressed his hands to the opposite wall and leaned over, taking long, deep breaths.

The door opened behind him and Scully came out. She put her hand on his shoulder, "Mulder?"

"Give me a minute."

She stood there, waiting, and Mulder gradually came back into himself. His head cleared one breath at a time, until he was left to wonder what had come over him. When he looked up, he found similar curiosity in her eyes, and she ran her hand over his back in gentle circles.

"You look sick," she said.

"We ate at some ratty pizza place," he admitted, hoping whatever had been crawling on that cheap pizza he ate had caused his outburst, and not the supernatural. Iden was a magnet for mystery. He never should have let her go into that forest. He could almost feel the springy ground underfoot, feel the trees bearing down on them, see the midnight sky up above, and hear the chatter of unseen animals, as his little charge searched the canopy for a scarlet kite.

Scully might have seen everything in his eyes, or nothing, but she dropped some of her coldness from earlier. She put her hand on his face as he stood up, looking from one of his eyes to the other, and nodding to herself. "You should get back to the room and lie down. I'll get Iden."

"No, no. You two can stay. I know the way back."

"How about she stays and Charlie walks her back later?"

Mulder shrugged.

He started off on his own while Scully went to relay the decision to her brother. She caught up to him in the hall and walked dutifully beside him, watching his face with unmasked curiosity.

"Iden had a vision?"

He nodded. "She saw a red kite in the forest, in that forest, on the other side of the parking lot. She said there was a red kite, and that if someone touched it, they would never escape."

"Who?"

Mulder shrugged again. "I tried to stop her, but she was at it like an animal, Scully. You should have seen her."

"Did something… happen in the woods?"

"No. Nothing. We looked for a while, but there was nothing there, so we went to eat."

"You don't think…?"

"No. I have food poisoning, that's all."

She pressed her lips together, pausing at their door with the keycard poised at the lock. "About earlier, with Bill… It all happened so fast. I know you-"

"Open the door, please."

She sighed, pressed the key in, and opened the door, going in first and locking it after him. Mulder went straight to the balcony, stepping out into the frigid night air to watch the snow fall firsthand, and Scully seemed like she wanted to follow. She sat on the foot of the bed and watched him, and then curled up with her book, keeping him in her peripheral vision.

It stayed that way for a while, until a voice spoke behind him.

"If I was alive, I would be freezing my balls off out here."

Mulder whipped around, finding the Gunmen occupying the three cheap lawn chairs sitting on the small stone balcony. Langly, Frohike, and Byers were painfully lifelike, bundled up in warm winter jackets with their hands tucked into their pits. Once government watchdogs and friends of his, they had died long ago, and now they were haunting him, making frequent, unwelcome visits.

He grimaced at seeing them, turning back toward the snow and trying to pretend he was alone.

"Oh, don't be like that, big guy," Langly said, leaning over and tapping his leg with a folded up newspaper. "You seemed lonely."

"I thought I got rid of you three."

"Ouch. Right in the heart." Frohike got up, his chair groaning, and leaned over the railing. "You know, every time you say that it hurts a little more."

"Oh, wait, guys, we went back to the imagination stage again," Byers supplied, stroking that perfect brown mustache of his. He hopped up and touched Mulder on the shoulder, his hand like a chilly wind. Mulder flinched away from him. "Feel that? Pretty ghostly, huh?"

Mulder groaned, "Leave me alone."

"Listen, we just wanted to stop by, see how you were doing. We caught the lonely vibes." Byers glanced at his companions, and then mimicked Frohike, so the three of them stood contemplating the forest together. "Lonely, and a little… strange."

"What do you mean, strange?"

"Whacky," Langly said, trying to join them, but getting shouldered away by Byers. He went back to his chair, grunting as he slumped into it. The plastic ground into the concrete as it shifted under his weight. "Like a weird kinda feeling."

"Why are you being so mean to my lady love?" Frohike asked, leaning in importantly. "What happened to the happy-go-lucky man-child we fell in love with?"

Mulder glared at him, and then realized that he was angry – but why? He was seething inside for no reason. It wasn't because of what happened with Bill. He was over that. He had accepted that some people were narrow-minded a long time ago. It wasn't because Scully had not taken his side. She shouldn't have to choose between him and her brother. So what was it? Why had he snapped at her earlier? Why had he shunned her apology, and come out here alone to sulk?

"Yeah, yeah, feel that?" Byers touched him again, and this time his hand lingered, like a cold breath rolling back and forth over Mulder. It made his skin crawl. "Weird vibes."

"Whacky," Langly said again.

"Iden had a vision today," Mulder admitted at last, leaning away from Byers. He hated that sensation, like death was reaching out to stroke his shoulders. He explained the vision in short, and pointed out at the woods. "In there somewhere. She was so convinced it was there."

"Maybe it _was_ there," Byers offered.

"We looked all over. She thought we would see it right away – bright red in the dark."

"No, I mean, maybe it was there, and that person that Iden thought would find it, found it."

Mulder looked straight at him, into his lifelike eyes, and his heart skipped a beat. It was plausible. It awakened the part of his brain that was hungry for mysteries, and he ran away with the idea. "She said… she said they would never get away. What does that mean?"

"Kidnapping?" Byers said.

"Monster with a red tongue?" Frohike added.

"Or just a kid lost in the cold," Mulder cut in. He stared at the woods again, a renewed sense of duty filling him to the brim. "Iden sees symbolism sometimes. She saw the kite, but maybe there was a child looking for it, and they got lost out there."

"Or, what if Iden was just having a regular little girl fantasy about a red kite?" Langly asked.

Mulder shrugged. "I'm gonna go look again. I have to."

"Wait, whoa. Important question." Frohike held out both hands, waiting for Mulder to look at him before he went on, "Do you want me to keep Dana warm while you're gone?"

Langly snorted, "Better question, should we start researching supernatural signs in the area?"

Mulder turned on him, pointing a stern finger. "No. Do not do that."

"Too late." Langly shrugged, folding his hands in his lap. "Next stop, library."

"No. Stay _out_ of this."

Mulder found himself talking to an empty chair, alone on the balcony. He sighed. Imagination or not, they were a handful. He had promised Scully that he would keep this holiday sane, that he wouldn't seek out the strange and unexplained, that they could be a normal family for once. But when he looked up and found Scully sitting up in bed, staring at him intently, he realized that he had already lost that battle.

He stepped inside, and Scully set her book on the mattress. She frowned at him. "Mulder…?"

Mulder glanced back at the balcony, and then pulled the curtain shut. "I guess you saw that."

"You having a conversation with the chair? Yeah, I saw it."

He scratched his head. "It was the Gunmen."

"Your ghosts?"

Scully knew that he was being haunted, and she attributed it to stress in the past, but the longer it went on the harder it was to write it off.

She looked concerned. "Mulder-"

"I know, I know. Stress. But I have to go back and look for that kite. I think her vision meant something else. I think there might be someone lost in the woods."

"Mulder, you're being crazy."

"When she told you that Katie was going to be killed, did you doubt it?"

Scully's expression hardened, and she shook her head, "That was different, she-"

"No, it wasn't different. I have to go out there. So just stay here."

She looked frozen to the spot. "No, Mulder. It's freezing out there! And snowing! Iden saw a kite in the woods, not a person. God, what has gotten into you?"

He had no idea, but he was driven to go back into the woods, and her words barely touched him. He zipped up his jacket, pulled on a toboggan, and headed downstairs. Scully followed him, trying to convince him to stay all the way to the lobby. She followed him out into the parking lot.

"Stop! Mulder, just stop!"

He paused on the sidewalk, groaning. " _What_?"

"I want you to stand there for a second and think about this rationally."

Mulder hated the tremor in her voice, so he did as she said. He stood there, staring into the trees, the cold biting at his face, the snow gathering on his shoulders, and thought about what he was doing. He took stock of the towering, black forest before him, of the depths beyond, of the pitfalls in the snow and the winding path he and Iden had already taken through it. Even in the half-light, with a flashlight, with an hour to spare, they had found nothing, and Iden had moved on from her vision. She let it pass her by like sand through her fingers.

So why was it resonating with him?

He looked back at Scully, swallowing a hard lump in his throat. "I…"

"Come on." Scully took his hand, grasping his fingers hard and warming them. She tugged him gently back toward the hotel. "Come back inside."

He stayed where he was, resisting her pull. "But the kite-"

Finally, her voice cut into the wind, " _Fox_. Do you remember when Iden first started dreaming about that yellow room?"

He swallowed again, enjoying the warm swell that came from her hands on his. She stepped closer, pressing another warm hand to his cheek.

"She had that dream for months and it terrified her every time. _Months_. Whatever you feel right now is irrational, and you need to trust me." She looked beyond him, to the trees, and her eyes got caught up in the darkness. "You're just spooked."

It was a good word for how he felt. _Spooked_. He looked back at the trees and staggered a few steps away from them, suddenly weary. He had felt a strong pull to go into the forest, almost manic, and now that Scully was chipping away at that feeling, he felt like a bug liberated from a spider web. He experienced a new clarity, and a new regret.

"Scully, something strange is going on here."

"Nothing is going on."

"Yes, it is, and it has to do with that forest." Mulder motioned to it, encompassing every black tree in one wide gesture. He stepped back again, tugging Scully with him.

"It has to _do_ with you and Iden, not the forest."

She stopped arguing with him, instead taking his hand more firmly and coaxing him back to their room. Mulder took a quick, scalding shower and climbed into bed, curling up on his side, facing the balcony and the forest, having opened the curtain so he could keep an eye on it. Scully came out of the bathroom in a white bathrobe and shut the curtain firmly. She glanced at him, a weary exhaustion in her eyes, and then took up her place beside him and started reading again.

Mulder kept his eyes on the curtain, convinced he could still feel the forest beyond it. His short trip into it with Iden had been uneventful, but his compulsion to go there had mirrored the way Iden had acted before. Both of them had been dead set on going into the woods, with nothing short of a full intervention swaying them from it.

But what _was_ it?

That question haunted him through the night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5.**

 **December 24, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

"Are you sulking?"

Mulder looked up, smiling at the little girl who now occupied one of the rocking chairs across the fire pit from him. She was petite for fourteen, making that word seem even stranger coming from her mouth. "Where did you get a word like that?"

Sarah shrugged. She was all dressed up in her dinner clothes, wearing a green dress a lot like the one Scully had picked up for Iden on the way into town, with a bright red scarp wrapped loosely around her neck. It complimented that bold Irish hair, making her look remarkably like Scully. He imagined this was what his partner would have looked like, all those years ago.

"I read it in a book. It means pouting." Sarah leaned her chair back, propping her glittery dress shoes on the edge of the fire pit and smearing their bottoms with ash. She kept her sharp eyes on him, "Well, are you?"

"No, I'm not _pouting_ ," Mulder said, flicking the little basket he had been trying to make out of grass toward her. It landed in the fire pit, and Sarah laughed. He plucked another long strand from the plants hanging over the porch and went back to work. "I got tired of your uncle glaring at me inside, so I came out here. I figured since this is his house, I should be the one to wait outside."

"Wait for what?"

"Boxing match?" Mulder shrugged.

"I think they started eating without us." Sarah glanced through the old wooden window, squinting, but she seemed unbothered by that observation. "I guess you weren't invited. Neither was I."

"I'm sure you were."

"Well, I don't want to eat with them after what Bill said yesterday."

Mulder was surprised to hear that, and a little pleased. So far she was the only person aside from Iden to take his side on the issue. "You should go in and eat. Your dad is there, right?"

Sarah ignored his question. "Matthew is mean, too, like his dad. I wonder if it just passes on, from dads to their kids. Iden is nice because of you, right?"

"Iden was nice before I ever met her," Mulder said.

"But I like you, both of you, and Dana. She seems normal and not plastic like Tara."

" _Plastic_?"

"Dad said that Bill and his family were plastic, like dolls living in a dollhouse, all perfect and happy. He said they never had bad stuff happen to them like us."

Mulder was suddenly curious about Charlie. He had talked to the guy a few times, enjoying his easy personality and sense of humor. He was very different from his siblings. It was like Bill sat at the top of the stick-up-the-butt scale, and Scully was somewhere in the middle, and then there was Charlie at the opposite end. He hoped Scully would start spending more time with Charlie now that he was back in the picture.

He sat quietly for a while, content to listen to the creak of the front porch swing as he pushed himself back and forth with the tip of his shoe. Sarah gazed out at the street, her eyes trailing people as they walked past. It was a busy little neighborhood, bustling with people on this day, so close to Christmas, and strikingly normal to Mulder. It was a taste of life that Scully had always wanted, the vision that he knew haunted her dreams. If they could have kept William, maybe they would have settled into a place like this. Mulder imagined himself attending ballgames and science fairs and getting scolded for teaching his son about the wider universe, and making pillow forts and covering up skinned knees, and buying him his first bike, his first skateboard, his first car.

But in his imaginings, he was missing the little girl who had come into their lives recently, the girl with stars in her eyes, and visions of the future haunting her. He realized that if they had gotten to live this idyllic life, they would have missed out on Iden.

"Why are you sad?"

Mulder looked up suddenly, rubbing his sleeve hastily under his eye to catch a tear that had just started falling. He coughed to clear the lump in his throat. "What? I'm not."

"Did somebody you love die?"

He considered that innocent question, and nodded, "Something like that."

"I lost my friend before we came here. I know how you feel."

Mulder remembered talking to her about her friend when he first met her, how she had brushed off his question about it. She must have felt comfortable around him, to say that out loud.

He changed the subject, for both of their sakes. "If he keeps being mean to you, I think you should talk to your Uncle Bill about Matthew."

"He called me names, so I threw a brick at his head."

Mulder snorted despite himself. "Don't do that anymore. Bad solution."

"He started it."

"Well, it doesn't matter who started it."

"Did you want to throw a brick at Uncle Bill yesterday?"

"I did, but I controlled myself. I think Dana would be mad at me if I hit her brother with a brick."

Sarah considered that, toying with the frayed ends of her scarf. "Yeah, probably." She put a breath between her words, and then veered into a questions, "Iden told me she was psychic. Is that true?"

Mulder felt a jolt run through him. He looked around to make sure this conversation was just between the two of them. "What? When?"

"Last night, on the balcony."

"She was just-"

"I promised not to tell anyone, pinky swore." Sarah leaned in importantly, red strands of hair fluttering around her face. "Especially not Bill."

Mulder was surprised Iden had revealed her secret to anyone, but Sarah made the most sense. He could tell the two of them had connected the night before, two outcasts, two kids with painful pasts, grabbing hold of each other for comfort. And it was the damndest thing, because Sarah looked more curious than doubtful. She was much older than Iden, but she had that same glimmer of wonder in her eyes.

Finally, he said, "Yes, Iden is psychic."

Sarah nodded like he had confirmed her choice of soup or salad, and fiddling with the corner of the fire pit. She spoke nonchalantly, airily, "Do you think she can see my friend, Henri?"

"Psychics see the future, not ghosts."

She slacked her shoulders, "Do you think…?"

Mulder waited for her to work up the nerve to finish that sentence.

Sarah took a steadying breath and looked him dead in the face. "Are ghosts real?"

He answered without hesitating. "Yes."

"So people can still be around, even when they die?"

"Sometimes, yes." Mulder wondered where this was going. "Sarah, did you see something-?"

"Never mind." Sarah cut him up, sitting straight in her chair.

"If you-"

"I said never mind."

Mulder nodded, relenting. "Okay. But if you ever want to ask me anything, feel free."

His curiosity surged. Was this kid seeing ghosts, like he was? Is that why she was avoiding her cousins? Is that why she got along so well with Iden? Or was she just mourning, and hoping that her friend was still in the world somehow?

Mulder gave her a few minutes to cool down, and then hopped out of the porch swing. "We should go inside and eat."

She twisted her lips, "But-"

"Matthew will behave himself, I promise." Mulder held out his hand, wiggling it when she only stared at him. "Come on. We only get so many chances to eat with the whole family like this."

Sarah smiled at him, losing her anger, her grief, and took his hand.

While they were walking in, she said, "I wish I had known you were nice before we got here. I would have gotten you a present instead of Bill."

"You being friends with Iden is all the present I need."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6.**

 **December 25, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

A buzzing filled the forest as three little remote-controlled cars surged over the leaves. Red was in the lead, bouncing through the snow like it was made for this terrain, and Green was right behind it, occasionally bumping it and trying to get it to spin out of control. Blue was way in the back, bumping into trees and occasionally sliding over frozen puddles as the six-year-old trying to control it was distracted by the other cars.

Eventually, the split attention became too much for Thomas and he ran face-first into a tree, just as his car took a nasty fall through a snow bank and disappeared in a blanket of white.

Thomas came up reeling, a splash of blood to match his scarlet hair dribbling down his chin and little pieces of bark embedded in his rosy cheeks, almost looking like large, misshapen freckles. Everyone froze for a split second to see how he would react, and then he started bawling.

Mulder jogged over and scooped the sobbing boy out of the snow, brushing the dirt off of his face. Big tears already rolled down his face. Mulder kept his mouth shut, unable to comfort the boy for fear that he would start laughing. Matthew and Oliver gave up their race for a brief moment to cluster around Mulder and make sure that the youngest was alright, and then they went back to it, sprinting deeper into the woods and hooting to each other.

When he set the boy in the snow, Melissa pranced over and took Thomas by the hand. "You should look where you're running, silly."

As she walked off with the kid, Mulder thought she looked eerily like her cousin, Sarah, but their personalities were very different. Melissa was bubbly and happy, but reserved inside, with a great fear for the unknown that showed in how she shied away from Iden. Her dress was conservative, her posture excellent, and her choice of reading materials scant. She lived with a strange sense of duty, joining Mulder in herding the boys and wanting to join in their game, but resisting. She had not gotten a car for Christmas, like her brothers, but a green petticoat.

Mulder stayed at the back of the crowd to keep an eye on all of them at once. Somehow he had ended up with the older kids, while the others stayed back at the house to open presents with the little ones. He was just here to make sure they all made it back in one piece, because the boys were very familiar with these woods already. He was also there to make sure that Matthew was nice to Sarah, and that Iden would keep the rest of their secrets to herself. It was also nice to get away from Bill, even though Scully had smoothed things over a bit that morning. It was easier to be nice to him when they were far away from each other.

Suddenly, the cars began to groan, their wheels slowing until they rolled to a full stop within inches of a break in the trees. Mulder caught up with them. "Looks like you ran out of juice."

"First charge never lasts," Matthew agreed, picking up his car and shaking the snow out of it. He looked painfully like his father. "Or maybe it got wet inside."

"Hey, come look at this!" Iden called from beyond the trees.

Everyone looked up at once, in a line, after all having neglected to notice the clearing right there in front of them. And it was just sitting there, in an oak tree in the middle, surrounded by snow and highlighted by a beam of sunlight, like a statue on a pedestal.

A treehouse.

Iden walked eagerly around the trunk of the tree, bouncing in her shoes. "Fox, look! I've never seen a real treehouse before!"

He marveled at it, a childish sense of wonder flooding him from head to toe. It was built of dark wood, nestled upon three great branches that spiraled out from the trunk of the oak. It was long, with a closed-in room near the base of the tree, and a sort of balcony coming out over the air, with a ladder leading from the edge to the ground, nearly touching the snow. It looked old – no, ancient – but sturdy, protected from the elements by the tree that held it up.

Matthew dropped the remote to his car and started toward it, but Mulder caught him by the shoulder. "Wait, wait. Let me test it first. It might be too old to climb in."

He wiggled the ladder and climbed up a few rungs, surprised by how strong it was under his hands, like it was built of fresh timber and not old, rotten logs. He was too big to climb over the balcony, but he pressed his hand on the floor of it, satisfied that it could hold his weight if he managed to squeeze up there. He came around the other side, climbing some boards nailed into the tree trunk and entering the main body of the house. It was spacious enough for him to crawl around in, and sturdy throughout, if not a little splintery.

He came back down and planted himself at the foot of it. "You can go up first, Matthew, and see it if holds you." He watched the fourteen-year-old scale the ladder and slide sideways onto the balcony, cringing as the wood groaned. It held his weight.

Mulder stayed right where he was as the kids swarmed up the oak, catching Thomas as his overbig boots slipped on the old boards. Even their reserved sister climbed up to join them, though she refused to go onto the balcony. He listened to their banter, to the orders Matthew tossed out to his little brothers, and suddenly realized one of the Scullys was missing.

Sarah was hanging back at the edge of the woods, frowning up at the treehouse.

Mulder left his post, calling up, "Matthew, keep an eye on Thomas," and joined her. It was significantly colder this far from the sunbeam that hit the treehouse, and he bundled his jacket up.

She looked at him, cheeks pink from their march through the woods, and wrapped her scarf a little tighter around her neck, saying nothing.

"Hey, why don't you go play with them?"

Sarah shrugged. "I got a sad wave."

"Sad wave?"

Sarah tucked her chin deeper into her scarf, shrugging. "Dad says when you get sad, it comes in waves. Sometimes the waves are big and deep and you feel like you might drown."

Mulder stepped closer, running his hand up her back. Her jacket made a slick plastic sound. "You were thinking about your friend, huh?"

She nodded, sullen.

Mulder had nothing to say for a moment. He turned to watch the others, to see Iden climb into the main building and giggle as Oliver popped out to surprise her. He spoke without intending to, "When I get sad about what I lost, I think about the good things that came before it. I only got one… just one… but it was enough for me for a long, long time. You must have had a lot of good times with your friend, a lot to remember."

Sarah was watching the treehouse, and then suddenly her voice came with desperate quickness, like she was choking on these words and the only way to survive was to spit them out. "Henri went skiing with us once, and we both ran into the same big pile of snow, and Dad had to dig us out. Oh, and when we were little, my mom took us to the circus and got us both those claw puppet things, and we fought with them like swords all the way home. Henri got mad at school when Daniel Martin pushed me off the slide, and she kicked dirt in his face. She got suspended, but Mom let us go swim at the lake that weekend anyway. And we-"

She stopped in a flurry, about to start another story, but losing it.

Mulder tried to read her face, but he gleaned nothing beyond surprise. "Do you feel better?"

Sarah shook herself, breaking free of whatever memory had stopped her. "She would have liked that treehouse." She took a step toward it, almost compulsively, "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Well, even if it falls, you're already pretty close to the ground. Go for it."

Sarah scaled the ladder and squeezed through the front door, nearly as big as Matthew. She had a hard time moving around, but soon she was laughing, and that sound seemed to make the air warm, even here in the shade of the trees. Mulder stepped closer, intending to poke his head in and check on the littler ones, who had been quiet for a little while, but that was when it happened.

He was just within the sunbeam when a chilly wind swept through the clearing. It seemed to pass right through his clothes, kissing his bare skin and sending a violent shiver through his body. It was a repulsive sensation, like fingers digging into his body and grasping his spine.

It came with the wind, but sounded far away, like it was passing through several feet of water to reach his ears. Laughter. It was a euphoric chorus of laughter, ghostly and unsettling, ringing through the clearing and making the sunlight seem less bright, the air seem less warm, the treehouse seem less friendly. It was not malicious, but happy, and yet every second it rang through his ears he felt a mounting pressure to run for his life.

Just as quickly as it came, it was gone.

Mulder swayed where he had stopped. Iden was already climbing down the ladder, and Sarah was looking out onto the balcony with a peculiar expression, but the others took no notice of what had happened. He summoned them anyway, "Come on down, we need to get back to the house."

Thomas was out first, followed swiftly by Oliver, and then Melissa, who had mud on her new petticoat. Iden had reached him, and wrapped her arms around his stomach, by the time Sarah started down the ladder. She had an old, ratty cloth baby doll clutched against her chest, leaving a wet stain on her clothes. It was missing one of its button-eyes.

Matthew came down last, reluctantly, and lingered. "Why?"

"Thomas is shivering," Mulder explained, motioning to the boy, who still had dried blood on his face. He wouldn't let anyone try to clean it off.

"Me and Oli can stay out here then, and you can all go back," Matthew reasoned.

"No, we should all go back."

Matthew groaned and trudged forward, but suddenly took notice of the doll Sarah had taken from the treehouse. He tried to grab it out of her arms, but she jerked away.

"Put that thing down, it could have bugs in it!"

"No! Leave it alone! I found it!"

Mulder stepped between them, but grimaced at the doll. "Why did you pick it up? It smells like…"

"Like shit," Matthew supplied.

Sarah held the doll away from them. "I'm keeping it. I'll wash it at the house."

"Not at _my_ house."

Matthew went to retrieve his car, and his brothers followed. Melissa lingered, smiling sheepishly at Sarah and obviously curious about the doll, but she gave in and went after Matthew. Mulder was left there with Iden holding his waist, and Sarah holding a grungy old doll.

"I want to keep it," Sarah said again, holding it tighter, and squeezing some moisture from its ruined, fingerless hands. It dripped down her white sweater, but she took no notice.

Iden withdrew from Mulder, only glancing at the doll. "Can we go back now?"

Mulder would have said yes, of course, because most of their group had already left, but something caught his eye and dried the word in his mouth. It was there in the trees, just a glimmer, a flash of crimson among the branches, roiling like an unfurled flag, and then it was gone.

If he had blinked, he would have missed it.

Iden was looking up as well, and Sarah was already following the trail of footprints back toward the house. He stuttered, searching for words.

And then Iden whispered, clutching his hand, "I saw it too. We should go."

Mulder agreed, following Sarah back through the woods. He looked back over and over, until the treehouse began to disappear behind layers of branches. When it was out of sight and the boys were only twenty feet in front of them, the blue car suddenly sprung to life in Thomas' arms. He stopped, startled, and the car fell from his arms, flipped around in the snow, and then caught traction and barreled into the nearest tree.

The other boys put their cars down and tried the remotes, and the cars rolled on like they were fresh and new again. Mulder found the circumstances of their revival eerie.

"Did anyone else hear someone laughing?" Sarah asked as their little group of three overcame Thomas, who was trying to tug his car out of the snowdrift below the tree. Mulder plucked it out for him. All the siblings shake their heads in turn at the question. Iden and Mulder both nodded, and Sarah gave them a strange look. "It was pretty loud. You guys sure?"

Matthew deigned to respond, sneering, "Was it your new dolly laughing at you?"

"No, it was kids, I think," Sarah responded, only half-aware that he was picking on her.

"I bet you're used to kids laughing at you, huh?"

"Shut up, Matthew!"

"Make me. You know, my dad told me you were an emo." He wheeled around suddenly, young face contorted in a scowl. "Did you try to kill yourself?"

Mulder felt a flash of anger, "Enough!"

Matthew was unaffected by his tone. He only spared Mulder a glance, and then he looked back at his cousin and snorted, "Pathetic."

He stalked off, leaving Sarah standing angrily in his wake. His words brought a red flush to her cheeks, a sharp mixture of rage, sorrow, and embarrassment. He thought she might pick up a rock and beat him with it, or fall into the snow and cry.

Iden ran toward Matthew suddenly, stick in hand, and Mulder cringed, expecting her to make solid contact with the back of his head. But she dropped the stick as she got to him and jumped onto his back instead, whacking him with two balled up fists.

Matthew was much bigger and he shook her off, holding his head. "Hey!"

"Say you're sorry!" Iden growled from the ground.

Matthew went to kick her, and then thought better of it, stepping away instead. Mulder snatched Iden from the ground before she could run after him, holding her with an arm across her chest. She wriggled, shouting, and kicked out both feet, nearly escaping him – and making Matthew flinch.

When she finally calmed down, she sunk to her knees. Mulder let her go and ordered the others home, even Sarah. Matthew stopped to tell him that his father would hear about this, and Iden mocked him, mimicking his voice in a higher pitch.

Mulder waited until they were out of earshot to crouch beside his wayward daughter.

"What the _hell_ was that?"

Iden looked sullen. "You should never say that to somebody."

"Yeah, it was a terrible thing to say, but that doesn't mean you can _attack_ him."

"I barely touched him!"

"Iden, you don't get to put your hands on other people like that. It doesn't matter what he said."

"It _does_ matter." Iden got to her feet, dusting snow from her knees. She carried on through the snow, plowing her own path beside the one her new cousins made.

Mulder followed slowly, weary of this little trip of theirs. He knew why Iden had reacted that way, and he had no wise words to prove that he was right – because he was wrong. Words mattered. Iden had lost her mother to suicide when she was six. She had been the one to find her, to come home and discover a body where her mother had been.

He was being cruel, but Matthew was still a kid, and Mulder placed the blame for what he said with his father. Bill must have fed that line to him.

When they got back to the house, the kids dispersed, and Mulder was grateful that Bill was not home. He had gone to deliver presents to an elderly neighbor. Mulder took Iden straight to the car and let her lay down in the trunk. She said she felt sick, but he thought it was just an excuse not to talk to him. She faced the back row of seats and curled up into a ball.

Mulder stood nearby, staring into the woods and imagining that treehouse. He tried to capture every detail, tried to remember what the railing looked like, how far apart the boards were, what shape the roof was, but as he grasped at them, the memories faded. It was just a ghostly dream.

On the ride home, Scully brushed off his story.

"You two would find something supernatural in a cereal box."

He snorted, "So tell me how your nephews walk in those woods all the time, and they never saw that treehouse, or that big clearing."

"Sarah seems happy with that doll, at least," Scully commented, ignoring his challenge.

"I haven't seen you so deep in denial in a long time."

Scully glanced to the backseat, where Iden was sleeping, and lowered her voice. "Mulder, you want there to be something here, but-"

"I _really_ don't want there to be something here," he countered. "I wanted you to have what you wanted – a normal Christmas. But pretending that nothing-"

"Okay, so you found a treehouse in the woods. What of it?"

"Not just the treehouse. Iden had a vision."

She sighed, obviously not ready to discount the little girl to fit her denial. "Okay. But just… I do want this to be a normal holiday, for once. So please, for me, just forget about the treehouse."

"If it stops bugging me, I stop bugging it. Deal?"

She smiled. "I can't take you anywhere."

"I think this was fifty percent _her_ fault. Just putting that out there."

"Speaking of, we'll be cooking most of the day tomorrow for dinner, so you have Iden."

"She doesn't want to cook? That's strange."

" _Somebody_ told her she would have to shove her hand in a dead turkey, and now she refuses to go near the kitchen."

Mulder turned into the hotel parking lot, doing his best to keep a straight face.

Scully looked at him sidelong, a familiar exasperated and affectionate look on her face. "Just remember what you promised. No more crazy."

"Got it. No more crazy."

He was quiet all the way up to the room, but as he was opening the door, he said,

"We need to talk about your nephew, by the way."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7.**

 **December 26, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

Mulder stepped up to the edge of the concrete, watching the water make its journey to the bottom and following its path downstream. He was trying to keep his promise to Scully – _no more crazy_ – and it was driving him crazy. His instincts told him to look into that treehouse, to try to find it again, to sample the wood and figure out how old it was, and where it came from. Now that she had given him her disappointed eyes, he really was sulking.

"Can we go back to the hotel?" Iden shouted from the other end of the dam. She refused to walk on it with him, eyeing the dark water wearily.

He stood, beckoning her. "Come look over."

Iden shook her head, staying put.

He relented, crossing back to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. "What's the matter? You've never been shy of water before. I'll be right there with you."

"I feel sick, can we just go back?"

Mulder caught a tremor in her voice, but not from the cold. He shrugged his coat off anyway, wrapping it over hers and turning her toward the distant parking lot. "If you want."

Iden marched along until they were halfway across, and then she stopped. Mulder gave her a little nudge, but she staggered against it.

"I know you promised to be normal, but I had a bad dream last night."

Mulder felt a prickle on his neck. Iden was psychic, and bad dreams were often visions of the future. He also hated the way she said it, because it meant she had been listening in the car the day before. He never wanted Iden to have to pretend to be like everyone else.

He crouched in front of her, taking both sides of his coat and wrapping them tightly together to keep her warm against the wind. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

She nodded, glum, and murmured, "I saw a little girl in the woods. I didn't know who she was, but she was lost and scared." She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. "I know you said sometimes dreams are just dreams, but I think she's really out there somewhere."

Mulder patted her back. "Would it make you feel better if we drove around a bit? Maybe you would recognize where you saw her."

Iden nodded again. "Are you sure? Dana said-"

"I know what she said."

"But you promised-"

"Sometimes we have to break promises. Dana… sometimes she doesn't understand."

"She wants me to be normal."

Mulder drew her away and put his hand on top of her fuzzy hair, shaking his head. "No. Both of us want you exactly the way you are, okay?"

Iden looked doubtful. "But she said-"

"I know what she said," he repeated again, standing. "But Dana loves you, and she just wants to keep you safe. If other people knew how special you were, they might try to hurt you, and the life we used to live… we got into a lot of trouble. She just wants you to be safe." He saw that she still doubted him, so he held out his hand. "I'll tell you what. When you see Dana, you can ask her yourself, but first make her swear on a stack of anatomy books to tell nothing but the truth."

Iden smiled at that. "Okay."

He started driving through the countryside, having spent most of the day exploring the more idyllic parts of San Diego, and leaving the inner city mess behind. Iden stared dutifully out the window, shaking her head whenever he prompted her about the trees seeming familiar.

She only said something when they had circled back toward the Scully house.

Iden tapped the window, pointing out the same patch of trees they had explored in the dark the other night, and the same patch of trees they had found the treehouse in.

"It was there, those trees." Iden looked back at him, biting her lip.

He parked in the hotel parking lot, facing the forest, and they both sat there for a moment just staring into it. He finally said, "Scully would kill me."

"What about the little girl?"

"We have to go eat soon."

"We can almost see the house from here," Iden reasoned. "Come on, Fox, _please_. We can look until Dana calls us."

He felt that familiar pull again, washing over him like wind. He was vaguely aware of Iden shivering beside him. Oh, he was definitely in trouble.

"I promised Scully I would leave this alone, but only if it stopped bugging me first." Mulder popped open his door and stepped out, feeling drawn to the forest, almost like invisible strings were tugging him in that direction. "So I think I held up my end."

Iden came out with him, taking his hand, and they walked into the trees together.

It was unfamiliar again, and before long the hotel had disappeared behind them. Mulder made a path through the snow, and Iden hung back to walk in his footsteps, because pushing through the snow was exhausting for her. Mulder had been in this forest multiple times now, in this very spot, but it looked foreign to him. It _felt_ foreign.

Soon they came upon a clearing, a different clearing than the one they had found yesterday, but it had the same oak tree in the center, and the same treehouse suspended in its branches.

Mulder stopped to stare at it, reconsidering his determination to get a sample from the wood. Before the clearing had felt like any other spot in the forest, but this time he got the distinct impression of malice. It was like the trees were baring down on him, watching him, like that treehouse itself was poised like a predator waiting to strike.

Iden seemed to feel it, too. She held his hand and stood by his side, gazing up at the treehouse with a mixture of awe and fear in her eyes.

"I saw her here," Iden said, breaking the silence and startling Mulder. She clutched his hand a little harder. "She was around here, in these trees."

Mulder looked around for any sign that there were others here, but the snow was pristine all over – it lacked even the prints from yesterday, which should have still been obvious. Had the treehouse moved? Was that really possible? He developed a distinct wonder as he stood there, theorizing about this relic of the forest. He had never heard a story about a haunted treehouse.

"We should wait here for her," Iden decided.

"No. We have go eat, and then we have to go back to the hotel and pack."

Iden gave him an incredulous look. "We can't leave!"

"Scully will wonder where we-"

"No, I mean, we have to stay here, in this city! I know that little girl is out there, and we have to save her!"

Mulder was torn. Her visions could come to fruition months after she had them, but she seemed so insistent that this was happening right now. He wanted to unravel the mysteries surrounding this building, which seemed to be clawing its way through the forest when no one was looking, but he could never justify that to Scully. It was just a peculiarity, just a mystery, and Iden having a vision was not enough to go on.

He sighed, stepping further into the clearing and watching the treehouse wearily. "We can stay until Scully calls, but then we have to go eat. No argument."

Iden nodded, going past him, bravely, and climbing the ladder. Mulder almost stopped her, afraid the collection of dark boards would gobble her up, but she went straight through the main room and came to sit on the balcony. She peered out into the forest.

He felt the sinister feeling fade the longer they stayed, whether because of the numbing cold, or because whatever was watching them was getting used to their presence.

His curiosity grew. He touched the wood, ran his fingers delicately over the bottom, testing the ladder, examined the nails, and looked inside for some carvings or engravings that would indicate who had built it. He found nothing of consequence, but it was even colder inside. He felt a wind where there should have been none, and an unsettling sluggishness creeping into his veins.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8.**

 **December 26, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

Scully danced around the living room, drawing giggles from the girl in her arms. Stella was three, with blonde hair and blue eyes, the spitting image of her father, but with a smile like her mother. She was still a baby, fond of repetition, quick to laugh and cry. It was a life stage that was full of magic, a precious stepping stone between an infant and a child, and it was something Scully had never seen in her own son. William might have looked a lot like Stella, _sounded_ a lot like her, and smiled a lot like her. He would have fussed like her, and messed with the table, and pulled his little stool over to the counter to steal a handful of candies.

But this missing him, this sad feeling inside, was of the warmer variety. She focused on how happy he must have been at this age, not how much she wished she could have been there.

Charlie poked his head out of the kitchen, smiling at her. He had an easy smile.

"Did you want this? Because you might have to fight me for her," Scully drew the girl up to her chest, stroking her silky blonde hair away from her eyes.

He showed her the pile of plates in his arms. "I was looking for Sarah, to help with the plates. She needs to do something do day, other than sit up there alone." He tapped on the wall, calling out for his daughter, "Sarah! Come downstairs!"

Scully waited, but heard nothing. "Maybe she has her headphones in."

Charlie set the plates down and headed upstairs, and Scully let the toddler go free. Her little prisoner went straight back toward the kitchen, no doubt to see if there was any more food she and her little stool could reach.

It was much quieter in the house without Mulder and Iden, and she was not entirely sure she liked it. Her brother had a good family, bright kids, and a lovely house in a big city, but the house seemed a lot less homey than their little farmhouse in Virginia. Her family made enough noise to be four times its size. While their floors were waxed and their carpets were vacuumed, Scully found a new mess almost every day, from muddy boots or a muddy dog, or both. She found half-assembled log houses in the yard and pillow forts in the living room.

It was a nice place, no doubt, but she decided she liked home more.

Charlie came down alone, frowning. "Nobody up there."

"Maybe she went out to play with her cousins," Scully suggested. She followed him this time, but found only her other brother's children in the yard. She caught Matthew by the shoulder and asked, "Have any of you seen Sarah?"

"She went into the woods," Matthew said.

Charlie glanced over the trees, and shouted, " _Sarah_?"

"Did she say anything?" Scully asked. Something felt wrong here. Years in the FBI had taught her to be cautious, and Mulder had been warning her that something was amiss since they got here. When her nephew looked at her and shook his head, she finally believed it.

Bill came out at the sound of shouting, and Tara trailed behind him with Colton in her arms.

"Sarah is gone," Scully told him, with no better way to say it. Charlie had already started into the woods, and she jogged after him. "Charlie, wait!"

He paid no mind, continuing his shouting, "Sarah? Sarah?"

Bill followed Scully, looking as concerned as she felt. "What do you mean?"

"Matthew said she went into the woods, but she didn't tell anyone that she was going." She picked up the pace, to get beside Charlie, and tried to reassure him, "She probably saw a deer, or something, and wanted to get a closer look."

Charlie was not swayed. He continued walking, wandering. "No, not her. It has to be something else… I knew this would happen."

"Knew what would happen?"

He kept on, shouting, "Sarah? Sarah?"

Scully got out in front of him, forcing him to stop, or try to phase through her. "Charlie, hey, wait. You knew what would happen?"

He ran a hand through his thick red hair, frustration blending with worry. "Henrietta, a friend of hers, killed herself. Back home. There were these bullies in school, and nobody would listen when she brought it to the principal, and she killed herself. I put Sarah in another school before the break, to get her away from those kids. But what if…?"

"Hey, Sarah wouldn't do that," Scully assured him, a hand on his shoulder.

He moved around her, shouting for his daughter, and Bill went on with him. Scully pulled out her phone and dialed Mulder's number out of habit.

She heard the ringing echo through the woods.

Charlie and Bill stopped to look at her, and Scully stared around, trying to pinpoint the sound. It was her turn to shout. " _Mulder_?"

His voice came back, sharp with confusion, "Scully?"

And then they showed up, pushing through a thicket, her lover and his mini-me. Iden was all bundled up, but she still looked cold, chilled to the bone, and Mulder looked more confused than anything. He saw her brothers and checked his watch.

"We weren't gone that long."

"No, we were out looking for Sarah," Scully told him. "Why are you out here?"

"We were on a walk," Iden lied immediately. Scully knew she was lying, because Iden never answered that quickly, and she never looked that innocent.

"Did you see Sarah?" Charlie asked.

"No." Mulder looked hard at Scully, questioning, and then at the desperate father. "But we can help you look. We just came from that way, so-"

"You probably had something to do with it, huh?" Bill asked, his tone a biting challenge. "I've seen you around the house talking to her. Just her. You like little girls, Mulder?"

It must have taken a lot for him to smile, but he did. Mulder had a smile as pretty as sunrise, showing that sweet, gentle soul of his, and it seemed to come easy to his face. He chose to let the words wash over him this time, instead of puffing up like a territorial dog. "Sarah was alone a lot, because of your little hell-spawn of a son, and I didn't see you volunteering to talk to her."

Scully switched roles with Mulder, becoming the impatient and aggressive one today. She glared at her brother. " _How_ could you think Mulder would do anything to Sarah?"

Before he could respond, Iden cut in, "We were at the treehouse, we never saw her."

All eyes found her, and Charlie said, "The… treehouse?"

Mulder groaned. "Um, yeah. Back that way. Big ugly thing, can't miss it."

"Show me where. Sarah might have gone there after you two left." Charlie was not born with a hostile bone in his body. He was oblivious to Scully bristling, and Bill taunting, and Mulder wearing his muzzle with pride. He only wanted his daughter.

Mulder took them back through the woods, and Scully fell in beside him, if only to serve as a buffer so Bill would think twice before saying anything to him again. She had half a mind to slap him, just for that accusation. But she had to remind herself that he was Bill, and Mulder was Mulder, and the two of them were painfully different people.

A clearing opened up in the woods, but it was empty.

Mulder walked out into it and frowned, turning in circles, standing in the center and waving his arms around. He looked disturbed, and spooked, and little Iden looked a bit paler.

"It was here, just a minute ago," Mulder murmured, dumbfounded.

Iden came back to Scully and took her hand, folding into her side.

"Where is Sarah?" Bill asked in a sudden, frightening volume. It made Scully jump.

Mulder dropped his patience and motioned around them. "I covered her in invisible paint, Bill. _Just for you_."

"I always knew something was off about you," Bill growled.

"Enough," Scully snapped at both of them. "We need to find Sarah, not stand here and argue."

"Just tell us where she is, Mulder," Bill persisted.

Mulder looked ready to throw a punch, but he ducked down suddenly and drew something out of the leaves. It was an old, dirty doll, leaking melting snow onto the ground. It looked familiar.

"She had this yesterday," Mulder said, holding the doll out for Charlie to see. "She found it at the treehouse, when we were out here with the other kids. Ask any one of them."

Charlie took the doll, frowning down at it, "She had it in the hotel room. How did it get out here? I didn't let her bring it…"

"How did she get past me?" Mulder spun in a circle, scrutinizing the clearing. "We were here… how did we miss her? Iden, did you see her?" When the girl shook her head, he came closer. "Are you sure? How long has she been gone, Scully?"

Scully looked to Charlie, and the father responded, "I saw her two hours ago, at least."

"We can find out when Matthew saw her leave," Scully offered. She knew he was doing math in his head, trying to figure out if he had been in the clearing when the girl had come through.

Her cousin narrowed the window to no more than a half hour, and Mulder kept muttering about how it was impossible for her to come there without he and Iden noticing. He went on about the treehouse vanishing as they searched the hotel, and the closest gas station, and the neighborhood for the missing girl. Scully told the police what she knew, and stayed at the house until well past sundown, watching the police dogs trail in circles as they tried to find a scent.

Mulder was the one that suggested they go back to the hotel, for the sake of Iden, who was shaken by the whole event. On the short drive over, he brought up the treehouse again.

"It was there, Scully. We were there. We walked away for _five minutes_ … and it was just gone. I know it wasn't a mirage, because the kids all saw it yesterday. They climbed it. _I_ climbed it. No. Something very strange is going on in those woods."

She had to agree, because as they pulled into the parking lot and piled out of the car again, she took a long, deep look at those woods, and felt like the woods were taking a long, deep look back at her. It made her shudder, not for the cold, or for her fears about Sarah disappearing, but for the way the trees seemed to lean over the pavement, the menacing wind trailing through their leaves.

 _Whatever you are, whoever you are, you can't keep her_ , she thought, as she turned to go inside.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9.**

 **December 26, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

"When was the last time you saw Sarah?"

"When we opened our presents, on Christmas day."

"Did she say anything to you about running away? Was she sad or upset?"

Iden shook her head, like she had a hundred times already during this conversation, and looked past the young policeman to the picnic table Fox was sitting on. "Nope."

"Where do you think she would go, if she ran away?"

Lots of places came to mind, but they were all places that _Iden_ would go. He wanted to know where her new cousin might go, and that was a tricky question. She had only known Sarah a few days and they were both from far away. Iden thought the woods were too thick to go alone and she would get lost if she walked into the city. The treehouse was the only place she could think of, but before the police came Fox had told her not to mention it.

She shrugged at the question, "I don't know. I'm sorry. Are you gonna find her?"

The policeman patted her on the head, closing his little notepad and putting it in his shirt pocket. "We'll find her. We have a lot of people out looking. Now which one is your mommy again?"

Iden pointed out Dana, who sat alone in the open backseat of the car they had rented. The policeman took her hand and walked her over.

"If you remember anything that might help us find your cousin, just tell your mommy to call this number, okay?" He showed Iden a little card, and then handed it to Dana, saying, "If you remember anything, call anytime."

"Thank you." Dana put the card in her pocket, waiting until the policeman had walked off to draw Iden into her lap. She wrapped both arms around her chest and sighed, seeming very close and very far away at the same time. "You okay?"

Iden shrugged, relaxing into the hug. Her eyes settled on the picnic table again.

Dana was looking at him, too. "Your uncle Bill made things worse, saying all that stuff about Mulder… He's taking up resources."

"What did he say?" Iden asked.

"He just… nothing." Dana ran a hand over her head, flattening her hair. "Don't worry about it."

Iden knew what Bill had said about Fox. He hated him and he thought he was the one who made Sarah go missing. He was standing by the house watching Fox with those beady eyes right now, and Iden glared at him. She had never met anyone nicer than Fox and Dana got mad when he defended himself, so she wanted to go over and yell at Bill. But Dana was holding her tightly and Iden didn't want to leave her alone, so she stayed. She _glared_. She wished that snowdrift on top of his house would come down on his head.

When the police were done talking to him, Fox came over with a frown on his face, and they all got in the car to make the short drive back to the hotel.

Fox said, "We should stay in California until they find her."

Dana was nodding.

Iden looked at the trees while they talked about Sarah, while Fox told Dana more about the treehouse they had found in the woods. She liked to see the forest, to imagine how the trees had come in one at a time, to try and catch glimpses of that red thing from her nightmares.

Suddenly the whole forest flashed bright crimson, and Iden flinched.

A moment later it was normal again and she squinted and blinked at it, trying to make the red come back. She looked over, but Fox and Dana hadn't noticed the change. She shivered. Was it a vision? What did it mean? She usually talked about her visions with Fox and they tried to figure them out together, but right now felt like a bad time. It always did, lately. Dana wanted a normal vacation and Iden wanted her to be happy. She wanted to be normal.

 _I bet you're used to kids laughing at you, huh?_

Matthew's words came back. He was talking to Sarah, but those words were true for Iden, too. She folded her arms, to keep her heart from falling out of her chest and melting on the floorboard. Kids laughed at her at school, because sometimes she had visions on the playground and fell off whatever she was climbing. They thought she was clumsy and she had to let them think that, because nobody could know the truth. Sarah got laughed at, too, and it made Iden feel close to her.

There was a tap on her window, and Iden jumped at the sound. Dana was standing outside, smiling at her, and she opened the door. "Where were you just then?"

"Thinking about Sarah," Iden said, hopping out of the car.

Fox was halfway to the room, and curiosity suddenly came over Iden.

She took Dana by the hand and stopped her from walking away. "Can I ask you something?"

Dana waited, squeezing her hand, "Anything."

"Would you rather have a normal daughter?"

What was normal, anyway? Iden had always been different. Ever since she could remember she had been having visions in her sleep, on the playground, in the bathtub. She saw things that made no sense, and things that made lots of sense, and things that were too scary to talk about. When they were trying to make her feel better, Fox and Dana told her that she was normal, too, but she knew it wasn't true.

Dana sank into a crouch in front of her, pulling that bright hair back behind her ear and taking Iden by both hands. She always had warm hands. Iden could feel how hurt she was by those words, like a wave creeping through her. It was so strong she pulled her hands away. Dana looked hurt by that, too, and Iden felt guilty.

"Why would you ask me that?" Dana whispered.

Iden squirmed under her gaze. "I don't know."

Dana pulled Iden into a warm hug, a _mom_ hug, and held her tightly. Iden hardly remembered her real mom, or what her hugs felt like, so she treasured it every time Dana hugged her. It made her feel safe, like not even the visions could hurt her.

"No," Dana said, holding her tight and warm, "There is no rather. You're mine. I would never give you up, not for anyone."

"Not even for a normal kid, like Matthew?"

Dana released her, something distant in her eyes. "Not even for that." She shook off her bad feeling and stood up, taking Iden by the hand. "Come on. Let's go inside where it's warm. Tara gave me a coloring book and some crayons for you to play with."

Iden ended up at the little desk in their hotel room, coloring, while Fox and Dana laid together on one of the beds and talked idly about a cheesy movie on the TV. Iden could tell they were tired. It got dark quickly and Iden asked if she could go with them in the morning to help look for Sarah. Fox said she could, but Dana said no, and they whispered together. Fox eventually decided that she should stay at the Scully house with the other kids. Both of them looked very grim.

Hours passed and her crayons wore down. Her shoulders ached. She slumped onto the desk for just a moment, letting her eyes roll shut, and the vision came.

 _Iden felt a rush of cold as she plunged into a dark forest. Its trees were lit only by the moon, arching branches appearing sinister as she flew past. Below, a small figure ran through the snow, making tracks, slipping and sliding, screaming, trying desperately to find the way out. Her fear was so thick Iden felt heavy, and she was knocked out of the air. She fell fast, crashing into the snow, sitting alone in the darkness with cold creeping in on her heart._

The light came back and Iden jumped to her feet. Her chair fell over. Fox was standing on the balcony in the cold, his lips moving, and Dana was on the bed asleep. Iden watched Fox, wondering if she should go out and tell him what she saw – but he already knew Sarah was out there all alone, trying to find a way home. At least that was who Iden thought she saw. It _had_ to be her.

He was talking to himself, though, and she didn't want to bother him with it. She crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head, trying to shake the cold.

She hoped one of those search teams Dana talked about with the dogs would find her that night. She hoped she would hear them howling. Maybe that was what Fox was waiting to hear.

When she shut her eyes the vision came back a hundred times, and she barely slept.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10.**

 **December 27, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

For thousands of years humankind has shared stories about monsters in the trees. Gene was a fan of the tales of birds who could mimic the human voice, luring hikers away from their groups and into hidden ravines. When they were injured or knocked unconscious, the birds would descend upon their prey, leaving nothing but inexplicable bones hours later. Mulder had been exchanging emails with him about the treehouse all night and though he had nothing to offer on the paranormal, he was full of speculation about the local animals.

It was dawn, and those mimicking birds were on his mind while the search teams assembled. It was less about the birds and more about the possibility of finding the little girl dead. Some ideas he had to keep from his partner, so he only wondered to himself.

Overnight he had convinced himself they would find some sign of the girl with the dogs. Search teams had been out for countless hours and came back with nothing. It was like the kid had walked out of her house, stepped into the woods, and flew off the face of the Earth. At this point the volunteer search was useless, because the dogs had scoured these woods and human eyes were nothing compared to the nose of a hound, but it was a necessary ritual. Charlie needed it. Right now the police were widening their search area, blasting the local airwaves with alerts, and monitoring phone lines and the house for any signs of her return. Having a hundred or so people walk through the woods was a lesson in futility.

Mulder kept that to himself, too, and yawned in greeting when Scully came back to his side. She was sleepy, but her eyes were bright. She looped her arms into one of his and rested her face against his shoulder, staring at the forest.

As much of a prick as Bill could be, he had a lot of friends in this city. Half the neighborhood had showed up to volunteer and it took nearly twenty minutes to get all their names written down.

Mulder and Scully were put between two strangers, a man in his thirties and an older woman in a big fluffy fur coat, and they walked a straight line into the woods. Mulder scanned the ground, back and forth, each time he made it more than ten feet, looking for tiny disturbances in the snow and underbrush that might indicate a child had been there.

He walked for hours, scanning the ground, to the edge of another neighborhood on the far side of the woods. He saw no signs of Sarah, and no sign of the treehouse or its clearing. Midday brought more fear, because they were approaching the twenty-four hour mark.

"It must have been some kind of illusion," Mulder said to Scully, when five had come and gone. He was sitting on a wet log deep along their search route, where another neighborhood could be seen through the trees and many volunteers stood waiting for the shuttle to put them back where they started. His partner paced in front of him, but paused to listen when he spoke. It was the first time he had dared theorize today. "The treehouse, I mean. You know, like an oasis in the desert."

Scully heaved a big sigh, sitting down beside him and rubbing her face with her hands. "It was there, Mulder. All the kids said they saw it."

"I know it was there. What bugs me is how it disappeared."

Scully peeked one pretty blue eye at him, and smiled, "When you get to the mirage, it disappears."

"Maybe an animal projects it, to draw the kids in," Mulder found himself siding with Gene, who made everything about cryptozoology. "It worked really well from what I saw."

Bill had great timing. He was coming up his line and overheard what Mulder said. He crossed over to them in a huff. "Can you just focus on finding Sarah, instead of wondering if aliens abducted her? Can you do that?"

If there was one person in the whole world who was the total opposite of Mulder, it was this man. Bill was big and aggressive, but only when Mulder was around. He hated him to an irrational extreme, like he had actually lost Scully all those years ago and Mulder was the one who killed her. He was convinced that Mulder was the worst thing that ever happened to his sister and that conviction had stayed with him over the years. He could hold a grudge like no one else.

But when he spoke, and gave Mulder that frustrated, exasperated tone like he was scolding a ten-year-old instead of talking to a grown man, Mulder only looked at Scully. He had to wonder how these two very different people could be related – his gentle, intelligent lover, and her close-minded grizzly of a brother.

Scully rolled her eyes at the intrusion, putting a hand on Mulder's shoulder like she was afraid he was going to hop up and deck her brother. She said, "Can you give it a rest, Bill? We were just talking."

Bill might have said something else, but a whistle blew off to the east.

"Sarah," Scully said under her breath, rushing off toward the sound. Bill followed quickly behind her, and Mulder went after them more slowly. He was cautious. His fear of finding a body instead of a living girl grew to an obnoxious peak.

They found a police officer standing in a small clearing, with people rapidly rather around him. He was holding a doll out in one hand, away from his body, and grimacing. It was the doll Sarah had found in the treehouse, the one she had taken back to the hotel with her – the one the police had collected the day before when she first went missing.

Mulder hardly believed his eyes. He stepped up behind Scully and looked at the nasty thing as it dangled and leaked water into the snow.

Charlie arrived before anyone could say anything. He snatched the doll from the officer and gaped at it, holding it to his chest, "We found this yesterday, in the woods."

Mulder looked at Scully, but couldn't catch her eyes. How had this ugly little doll found its way back into the woods already? He looked around as if Sarah would be nearby, just waiting to be found under a bush or something. The clearing was empty. The gathered volunteers shared glances filled with confusion and fear.

Charlie cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Sarah! _Sarah_!"

The police officer set the doll down and took out his phone. Mulder lingered closer, listening to the short, confusing conversation. The officer glanced around himself and said, "The evidence box wasn't tampered with, but the doll was missing. This doll."

Mulder approached the doll, crouching nearby to examine its sunken eyes, its ugly, chipped plastic arms. He was shaking his head when he murmured, "A mirage."

His partner tapped his back, and beckoned him off into the woods, away from curious ears. She looked more frustrated than afraid. "Give me your theories on this."

"We all climbed on the treehouse, and you were right. Mirages disappear when you get near them. So maybe it was some kind of… shapeshifting… building?"

Scully gave him a blank look.

"Ghost?" he offered.

She rubbed her forehead, like the very suggestion that this could be the workings of a ghost gave her a headache. "We have to find her, Mulder. We have to."

"I know. We will."

Scully left him there, going up to Charlie and hugging him. Mulder watched them and felt a deep sense of duty toward the missing girl, because whatever had taken her – he was sure now – was supernatural in nature. He was responsible now, because the people who had volunteered, her family, her friends, were ill equipped to find answers.

Mulder walked off on his own, still within sight of the bordering neighborhood but away from the volunteers, and put his hand on the first tree trunk he encountered. Something in him wanted to feel things like Iden did, to get a sense of the future when he closed his eyes, when he touched this tree. But the wood was cold and quiet and the forest held onto its secrets.

A wind swept through the trees and chilled him. He thought he heard a gentle sound, like laughter, but it was so soft it barely registered. It was calling to him. His skin tingled. Whatever was out there was like a spider on its web, touching the tendrils delicately, waiting for one to shake.

A voice came behind him.

"No."

Mulder jumped, slipping to the other side of the tree to use it for protection if he was under attack. One of his ghosts, Frohike, was standing beside him, looking deep into the woods. For once he was alone, a solitary figure, appearing very much alive.

He spoke again, softer, "You have this bad feeling inside. You should probably listen to it."

Mulder joined him in looking into the trees, finding the forest suddenly menacing and dark. He knew the other volunteers were not far away, that he could turn around and go back to the safety of the group, but he felt that gentle tug inside of him again. _Come_ , it said.

"What's out there?" he asked dreamily.

Frohike took a few steps, leaving no prints in the snow, running his hand along a tree but not seeming to touch it at all. "Being dead doesn't make me omniscient. But you and I are connected. I'm getting bad vibes. Whatever you were thinking of doing, don't do it."

"Sarah is out there."

"You just met Sarah, and the world has a million girls just like her." Frohike crossed his arms like he was cold, talking more to the woods than to Mulder. "We have a theory about our connection to you. If you die, we die – for good this time. So when stuff like this happens we've started drawing straws to decide who gets to come and tell you not to be an idiot."

Mulder shook that comment off and started walking, his ghost staying dutifully by his side. "Come on, don't tell me you're not curious."

"I lost a lot of curiosity when I died." Frohike did look curious though, and strangely reserved for someone who was already dead. He walked with a caution he had never bothered with in life. "You and your ghosts… You _are_ thinking ghosts, right?"

"Unless you have other ideas, that's the working theory."

"Doesn't feel like ghosts." Mulder paused to look at him, and Frohike explained, "I mean, it seems too big for ghosts. We can touch things, yeah, if we try really hard, but making a whole building that kids can climb in? No. It's not some kind of supernatural sixth sense I have. Just logic."

" _Could_ you sense it, if it were another ghost?"

"Dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. You would probably be better at it."

Mulder had no explanation for his ability to see the Gunmen, or the old woman in the library, or the spirit of the departed alien Deloris. He kept it to himself for the most part, fearing he was losing his mind at first, and sure they would stop haunting him before long. But the Gunmen remained, and his haunting was prolonged into plain old harassment.

He shrugged at the comment, unwilling to go into that right now.

"Maybe your theory about it being an animal was right. Just a big old shapeshifting treehouse."

Mulder smiled at that, and so did Frohike. They were already out of view of the nearby neighborhood and the forest seemed to open its maw and swallow them both up. Trees got closer together, underbrush more challenging. Frohike strolled through it and Mulder struggled.

While his ghost waited for him to navigate a patch of thorns, he asked, "Where do you and the other Gunmen go when you're not with me?"

Frohike shrugged. "Nowhere, and somewhere."

"You always know what I was doing while you were gone."

"I told you we're connected."

Mulder shuddered at the thought of his three former friends crawling around inside his head. "You have to be somewhere."

Their walk stopped abruptly in a clearing, and the treehouse was sitting in its tree again.

Mulder stopped dead the moment he saw it, his heart racing, with both glee and terror. It was a horrible and fascinating thing, this treehouse. "I'll be damned."

Frohike only sighed, looking up at it. "You never listen."

His ghost vanished, just like that.

Mulder watched the empty air where he had been standing, convinced he would poof back. But he was gone, and now Mulder was alone with this curious structure.

He ventured closer, hearing the memory of that laughter in the back of his mind.

"Hello?" Mulder called out softly.

Silence dominated the forest. It was like someone had put cotton in his ears. Even his footsteps seemed muted, the crunch of snow, the beating of his heart in his throat. He touched the trunk of the tree that held it, feeling nothing but coldness, and looked up the ladder into the darkness of the house itself. It seemed empty, but Mulder got the sense that something was looking back at him.

Mulder put his hand on the ladder, "Sarah? Is anybody up there?"

Silence.

He hung there, debating with himself. Of all the horror stories he had heard about monsters in the forest, none struck him so much as the one he was in now. The longer he stayed, the more he felt the treehouse looming over him, like it was waiting for him. The silence reminded him of something Gene Foster said about the caves, when they had suspected a monster lurked within.

 _I walked, and I listened to the water running, and recorded the sounds of frogs and insects echoing from all over, and then everything went silent._

Silence was a bad sign after so long hearing winter birds chirp. He could scarcely hear his own heart beating now. Maybe he was right about the spider sitting in its web. Only predators could make the woods go quiet like this, as the prey huddled down and hoped it wasn't noticed. The air itself went still and the breeze died away.

He climbed up another rung and poked his head in.

It was dark inside, but the light from the balcony showed him just enough.

Sarah sat in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. She was pale and trembling. When she saw him she gave a pitiful whimper. She whispered, "Help me."

Mulder climbed up another rung, holding his hand out. "Come here. Take me hand."

Sarah scooted forward eagerly, taking his hand. She climbed down the ladder with him and almost fell when her feet hit the ground. Mulder held her steady.

"I wanna go home," she whimpered.

Mulder held her hand, maybe a little too hard, and headed for the edge of the clearing.

Laughter pierced the air.

It was so loud he had to let go of the girl and cover his ears. The sound rumbled his chest, made his heart stutter. It morphed into sobbing, and the wind kicked up all at once. Snow puffed into the air in a flurry. Branches rolled toward them, end over end, and leaves were ripped from the nearby trees. Mulder wrapped his arms around Sarah to shield her from a flying branch. It struck him in the center of the back and then flew toward the treehouse, circling it like the house itself was the center of a mighty tornado.

"I wanna go home!" Sarah screamed.

Mulder tried to move, to get further out of the clearing, but the wind was too strong. It encircled them. Sarah was still screaming, holding onto him, but the wind was too fierce.

And then he saw it, a vision coming to life for the first time.

A red kite was flung from the branches of a nearby tree, and it swooped down toward them in a rush. At the same moment the wind tossed him to his knees, and Sarah stumbled out of his reach.

 _If she touches it… she'll never get away._

Mulder reached out, his voice torn away, as he cried, "Sarah, get down!"

But the kite hit her, and that scarlet scarf of hers unwound, and she spun into the snow like a ragdoll. He reached out again, determined to get a hand on the girl.

 _If she touches it… she'll never get away._

Something hard struck him in the head. Mulder hit the ground, dazed, and watched as the world calmed around him, like the sudden storm had departed. Sarah was gone, but she left an imprint in the snow. He looked up and found the tree and the treehouse missing from the clearing, like they had never been there. He felt the loss like a punch in the gut, and then slipped into blackness.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11.**

 **December 27, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

Mulder woke with a start, sitting straight up and banging his head on the nearest solid object. It barely made a sound and dirt rained down over him. He squinted, finding little shafts of dim light above, but darkness all around. He tasted earth and felt a cold hardness. He was underground. Panic made his hair raise up, but something kept him calm.

He was doing something before he ended up here.

 _Sarah_.

"Sarah!" Mulder moved toward the light, like he could burrow through, and pressed his face against hard tree roots. "Sarah! Sarah!"

His answer was silence.

She was gone again. He had been so close. He had her in his hands, and now she was gone again. Mulder sat back with a groan, failure rising like bile in his throat.

He groped upward, his fingers jabbing into the roots, and making more dirt rain down. It was a small space, with no room to sit straight or stand up. How did he get down here? Every direction offered more dirt and more roots, with no adult sized holes to squeeze through.

Something ruffled in the woods.

"Sarah?" Mulder put his face to the roots again. "Sarah!"

A confused male voice called back, "Fox Mulder?"

It was someone he had never heard before. Mulder poked his hand up into one of the small openings and groped around. "Who's there?"

He heard the man mumbled under his breath, "How the hell…?"

"Did you bring a shovel?" Mulder wondered.

A flashlight beam crossed over him, and Mulder withdrew a little. The man crouched down and looked through the holes, shining his flashlight down. He was young and wearing a police uniform. Mulder turned as the light bounced around his hovel, curious about his tiny prison.

It illuminated white spots in the dirt.

His skin prickled.

"What is that?" the officer asked.

Mulder reached out, cautious, "Hold the light on it. Just like that." He touched the end and found it disturbingly solid. He scraped his fingers around it, until it formed a rounded edge. It was rough and porous, stained and mostly buried, but he knew what it was immediately. "Bones."

"What?"

"Bones. Human bones, I think." Mulder drew his hand back, a sick feeling invading his stomach. "We need to call someone. You need to call someone. Get everybody out here."

His request was granted, and the moment they cut through the roots holding him into his little prison, they slapped cuffs on his wrists. Mulder stood against a tree while the police trudged through the woods around him, collecting bones from the hole until they had a healthy pile. More and more people arrived, and Mulder kept his mouth shut, too consumed by his grim curiosity and fear to defend his innocence.

One of the forensics guys was standing in the hole – because only one could fit at a time – and when the bones ran out he pulled something else from the dirt tomb.

Dolls.

Mulder counted four. One was a lion, another a plastic boy, the third a mangy stuffed rabbit, and the fourth a handmaid cloth girl without a face. Each one looked old, older even than the doll Sarah had found in the woods, but they were all eerily similar to one another.

He lost track of time, and was grateful when he was marched through the woods to a police car, and carted off to the station. He got to sit down for a little while. He sat quietly in interrogation, telling them whatever they wanted to know, not being defensive or angry or even mildly frustrated. He felt devoid of those things inside. His failure was eating away at him. His curiosity was burning him up. His mystery had just deepened and he wasn't entirely sure he had really woken up.

Scully arrived in the morning, having gone to the morgue to assess the bones alongside the local forensic analysts. She arrived with news that got him released, and on the way out she had her hand on his back, her eyes a million miles away.

"When we got the call I was going to come straight here, but the bones were the only way to get them to let you go." Scully drove them back to the hotel, explaining in a faraway voice. "We dated the bones, and medical records came back for three sets. Kids, all of them, and the oldest had to have died sixty years ago. After that, forty-five years, thirty years, and fifteen years."

Mulder nodded, murmuring, "How…?"

"No signs of trauma. With the bone density scans we can reasonable infer that they all died of starvation." Scully cleared her throat. "How did you get down there?"

He shrugged. "Like I told the police, I had her. I had her right beside me, and then she was gone, and everything was black. I woke up down there."

"You were in the heart of the search area." She glanced over, frowning. "I thought… Well, I was glad when they said they found you. Not really glad they arrested you."

"It happens." Mulder managed a smile. "I had her, Scully. I had her in my arms."

"How do we get her back?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

"Your sighting invigorated the search, at least. No one is giving up." Scully reached over and put her hand on his shoulder, giving it a little squeeze.

Mulder was quiet for a while. He took a shower and laid down in bed, watching Iden color on the desk in the corner, and letting his thoughts take the wheel. He felt guilty. It was making it hard to focus. He was glad Scully had kept Bill and Charlie away. He was glad she had gotten him released on the basis that he could not have killed a child in California sixty years ago. He was glad, and he was numb.

"Fifteen years." He finally spoke when the guilt faded and the ideas came back. He gave her words a purpose. "Every fifteen years. What's the significance of that?"

Scully had been sitting with Iden. She looked up at his question. "Maybe an anniversary of some sort."

"So sixty years ago something happened. A catalyst."

"I got a call from Skinner while you were in the shower," she admitted. "Now that a clear pattern has emerged, the FBI might be getting involved. We'll know by tomorrow."

"Seems like more of a local police issue."

"I think the supernatural still gets his attention." Scully came over to sit beside him, flipping the TV on. "Get some sleep tonight. You look like you need it."

"I need to find Sarah."

"We will. I know we will."

Mulder kept reliving his encounter with the little girl while he lay there. He thought of what he could have done differently, to bring her home before she suffered the same fate as the other children. He needed to know what the treehouse was, how to fight it, how to wound it so it would loosen its grasp on Sarah. He needed more information, more time. But how much time did she have left? How long would it take for the treehouse to spirit her away, never to be seen again?


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**.

 **December 28, 2010.**

 **San Diego, California.**

"I came over as soon as I heard you two were involved."

Scully looked tired. She was still wearing pajama pants, her hair was scraggly, and she had purple circles under her eyes. She had spent yet another night consoling her brother and carrying his pain around on her shoulders. Mulder had only seen her this tired a few times in their long partnership. She still managed to smile at their old friend as she delivered a hot cup of hotel room coffee to his hands. She sat in one of the little wooden chairs, holding her coffee like a lifeline.

She was slow to speak, still waking up, "I'm glad you came."

"I heard they arrested Mulder yesterday." Skinner looked very much the same as he always had, only a decade or so older. He had less hair, more wrinkles on his face, but he still wore that same stern look he had given them so many times when they were his subordinates. He looked amused by his own words. "We should make a flipbook of your mugshots over the years."

Mulder smiled, and yawned, "Did they find any more bodies in that pit?"

"No. Ground penetrating radar came up with nothing. Four bodies total, with a confirmed fifteen-year gap between each death. We matched dental and medical records and three have already been identified." Skinner handed a thin folder to Scully. "I was hoping you two had more than this."

Mulder slid closer to his partner and looked over her shoulder, staring down at a school picture of a little boy. It was the last time he was photographed alive.

"No luck with the search so far." Scully handed the folder to Mulder, and sipped her coffee.

Skinner focused on Mulder, narrowing his eyes, "I heard some interesting things from the police at the debriefing this morning."

"I saw her," Mulder admitted, still bitter about the whole thing. "But I lost her."

"What about this treehouse?"

"What did the police tell you?"

Skinner shook his head, running one big hand over his bald head. "You know I… prescribed to this whole supernatural thing a long time ago. I know not everything can be explained. You taught me that. But based on what they told me…"

"You think I'm crazy?"

"I spent a good portion of my career thinking you were crazy." Skinner glanced around, as if to make sure no one would hear him admitting defeat, "But I trust you. I do. So talk to me."

Mulder did as he wanted, only leaving out a few bits that involved his irritating ghost companions. Some things were easier to believe and understand than others. Psychotic treehouse wandering the woods and sucking up small children? Reasonable. Former federal agent seeing the ghosts of his long-dead friends? Less reasonable. At least that was how Mulder saw it.

When he was done, his former boss sighed and touched his head again, almost nervously, "Well, the FBI has officially taken over. A pattern like this can't be ignored. But we're searching for one human killer, or an elderly killer and his protégé."

Skinner stayed for a while, discussing, offering his help and his condolences to Scully for the disappearance of her niece. He vowed to go through the rest of the X-files in case there was anything related to what Mulder had seen, but he doubted there was. Mulder remembered no such case. Scully took him over to meet her brother, and to go pick up Iden from the Scully household, where she had left her early that morning.

Mulder was left alone at last, just him and the balcony, and the bright new dawn.

But he never got to be alone for very long anymore.

"So your crazy treehouse idea turned up nothing."

Mulder groaned and sunk into his chair, pulling the hood of his jacket down over his forehead. His ghosts were here again. Langley was sitting in the chair beside him, Byers was leaning over the railing, and Frohike was sitting on the ground, toying with something in his lap.

"What a greeting," Frohike commented. "Every time we show up, we get groaned at."

"Maybe you should take a hint," Mulder suggested.

"We looked all over – well, as far as our leashes will reach without snapping us back to you," Langley said, tousling that long blonde hair of his. "Nothing about crazy treehouses."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Well, nothing about crazy treehouses abducting children every fifteen years," he amended.

Mulder crossed his arms, feeling the grouchiness set in. "Then what good are you?"

"Maybe our lack of discovery means this has nothing to do with ghosts. Good news, right?" Byers was trying to look hopeful, but he failed. "Why are you so bummed?"

Mulder tipped his hood back and got a good look at the three of them. " _Ghosts_."

"Not this again." Frohike waved his hands around. "Hey, over here. See me? Obviously not a delusion. Come on, you spent your career chasing aliens and getting haunted, but the thought of you being able to see ghosts is just too much for you?"

Mulder shook those words off. "I never asked for this."

"Well, you got it. Tough turnips."

"But why?"

"Why did you meet us in the first place? Why did the gods shine down and make Scully your partner? Why did you survive all those near-misses when you worked for the FBI? No reason. No reason at all." Frohike went back to his task.

Skinner came back after talking to everyone he could find, knocking on the hotel room door with a little bag of convenient store donuts. Scully had gone to see the bones again, to offer what insight she could and see if there was anything strange about the way they died.

Mulder sat with his former boss, trying to ignore the three ghosts that had followed him into the room.

"I got a little more on the victims," Skinner said, flipping through his growing folder. "Uh, one of the kids was in foster care at the time of his disappearance, and another one had recently lost a sister to homicide. For a while the parents were suspected and the kid was placed with immediate relatives. I got nothing on the other two."

"Grief."

"Hmm?"

"It sounds like those kids were experiencing grief, in some form." Mulder popped a donut in his mouth, and took a sip of coffee to melt it down. "Sara recently had a friend die. She was grieving."

"So you think… your magic treehouse is preying on grieving children?"

"I think it draws people in with their grief, like moths to a flame. You feel this… overwhelming need to be in the woods, to go and find it. Iden and I have both experienced it. I have no doubt Sara was drawn in by the same feeling."

"Why were you and Iden affected?"

"Iden lost her mom when she was little… and then her… her sister, sort of."

"What about you?"

"You know what I lost." Mulder sat a little straighter, "But we have something now, a connection. Instead of kids randomly disappearing, we have a clear predatory pattern."

"But we still don't know why it happens every fifteen years, or how-"

"One step at a time." Mulder got up and took the folder, laying it out on the bed to look through the files. He pointed to an old black and white picture of a smiling boy. "Here, this one. Brian Winter. He was the first one to go missing. He might have been the catalyst."

"He disappeared after a soccer match in Greenfield, a few hours from here."

"I'll start there."

"What do you expect to find, after all these years?"

"Maybe nothing." Mulder closed the folder, and handed it to Skinner. "But you and Scully both have lots to do, and I want to find Sara, so I have to do something."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**.

 **San Diego California.**

Greenfield was like any other small town. It was beautiful, historic, still covered in decorations from the Christmas parade. Every sidewalk was swept, the little stores were all primped and polished, and the speed limit was always under forty. Mulder parked in a shady lot behind a barber shop and strolled the town, trying to pick up any oddities. It seemed so normal, so tranquil.

If he was not holding the file in his hand, he never would have believed that a young boy had gone missing here sixty years ago. Skinner had pulled the archives. Nothing like this had ever happened in Greenfield and the town was in chaos for days. His disappearance had become a point of public speculation, a special on late night talk shows every decade to mark the anniversary, with titles reading ' _What really happened to Brian Winter_?'

He had vanished after a community soccer tournament, so Mulder headed for the fields. He looked at the grainy photo of the boy, a school picture, taken the day before the game, and was painfully aware that this was the last picture ever taken of him.

Kids were running around on the field, wrapped up in winter jackets, giggling and tossing a soccer ball between them. Mulder took in the whole scene – the concession stand on the far side, the metal benches lining the field, the tennis courts leading into a large pond, with what looked like a golf course behind it. He was in a wide open space. How could someone vanish here?

An old woman was watching him from one of the benches, clutching her purse. He wandered toward her, as if by chance, and sat down beside her.

She spoke before he got a chance to, "Are you a police officer?"

Mulder shook his head, deciding she was old enough to have been alive when the boy went missing. "No. Well, I used to be."

"You came out here because of Brian, though, right?"

"I did."

She looked at the field, holding her purse a little tighter. "I heard about that little girl going missing, and all those bones they found." She looked at the fields like she could see right through them. "Whenever a child goes missing I come out here."

"Did you know Brian?"

"No." She sort of smiled, and then it faded away. "But I saw him the day he went missing."

Mulder got a chill, and the little hairs on the back of his neck stood upright. "Could you tell me what you saw?"

"Why are you here?"

Mulder opened his folder to show her the school picture of Brian Winter. "I know the little girl who went missing, Sarah, and I'm trying to find her. Sixty years ago Brian went missing under similar circumstances, and every fifteen years since then, another child has been taken. If you could tell me anything about what happened to Brian that day, it might help me find Sarah."

She stared at him for a while, with big, dark, wet eyes, and then nodded. "I was coming home from church, from that church over there," she pointed out a church across the field, "and I saw him running away from the game, crying. He was such a little thing. He barely filled his uniform. He ran toward the woods. Used to be woods, this whole area aside from this field. I thought I should… follow him, to make sure he was okay, but when I looked at the trees he was gone. Just gone."

She was quiet for several moments, just breathing, caught up in her own story. She kept her hand up, pointed toward the tennis courts.

"I heard someone laughing, but that was it."

Mulder imagined woods bordering the fields, and a little boy in an old soccer uniform running toward them. He was ten when he disappeared, a little younger than Sarah.

"What do you think happened to him?" he asked the woman.

"Oh, I know what happened to him. Poor boy."

Mulder sat up a little straighter, "What do you mean?"

"The Reaper got him."

"The… Reaper?"

He had heard those words before. In almost every culture, there were stories centered around a cloaked figure with a scythe – the Grim Reaper. It was a personification of death, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But nothing about this case suggested something like that.

The woman said, "It's just a story from a long time ago, before this was a town. I never knew it very well, but my nephew could tell it to you, if you want. His grandma, my mother, taught him."

"I would like to talk to him. Where can I find him?"

"Go down the road to the college and ask for Liam Wright."

Mulder stood, eager to have found a lead. "Thank you so much."

She readjusted, and held her purse at another angle, looking up at him with a strange emptiness in her eyes. "I hope you find that little girl in time."

"I will."

"One more thing. You said you used to work for the police, right?"

"Yeah. I did."

"Do you think that…? I mean, do you know if the children suffered at all?"

Mulder knew they all starved to death, that their flesh wasted away and their stomachs growled for days on end. He knew they would have slipped into states of exhaustion, of dehydration, while their bodies began to shut down. But there was no reason to inflict that knowledge on others.

"No, they didn't suffer."

XxX

She went down so suddenly that Scully nearly tripped trying to catch her. Iden went limp in her arms, her eyes shut tightly, flickering beneath their lids. Her hands shook, grasping at Scully, and for a brief, terrible moment Scully thought she was having a seizure.

It ended as quickly as it had begun, and the girl woke all at once.

"No!" she cried, grabbing at Scully until she could wrap her arms around her neck. She held on for dear life, sobbing.

Her brothers gathered around Scully, concerned and confused, and she lifted her charge up to the bed, every hair standing on end. Iden had a vision, and it terrified her. It could mean Mulder was in danger, or that Sarah was dead. It could mean something terrible was going to happen.

"Shh, shh," Scully whispered, "Tell me what you saw. Tell me, Iden."

"I saw the kite… no, the scarf, it wasn't a kite. It was a scarf! It was on a tree… wrapping and wrapping and squeezing! We have to go find it! We have to stop it!"

"What in the hell is she talking about?" Bill demanded.

Charlie was wide-eyed, "Bill, shut up. What is she talking about, Dana?"

Scully held Iden tightly when she tried to squirm away. "We can't go out right now. We can't. Iden, you have to calm down. Just calm down, okay? Just breathe. Just breathe."

Iden struggled, "But it's too tight! It's too tight!"

There was a knock on the door. Charlie answered it, and Scully continued trying to quiet the little girl. "Breathe for me. Take a few minutes to calm down."

"I can't," Iden whined. "We have to go save him!"

Scully frowned, "Him?"

"I need a minute," Charlie said suddenly, letting two police officers into the room. Bill gave Scully and Iden a sideways glance and left, and Scully carried Iden through the door.

When the door closed, she asked again, "Iden, what do you mean ' _him_?'"

"We have to go. _Please._ We have to help."

Scully set her down, and crouched in front of her, taking her face with both hands. "Look at me. I want you to listen to me, okay?"

Iden finally calmed a little, staring at her with glassy eyes.

"We can go out with the search team in the woods, if you really need to. But we stay with them, okay? And only until it gets dark."

Iden nodded and sniffled, "Okay."

Scully hugged her, "We'll find her."

"How can you know that?"

"Because we have the best team," Scully said, stroking her hair. "You, me, and Mulder."

Iden smiled at that, and they walked hand-in-hand down to the hotel lobby. Scully let her words sink in, memorizing the details so she could repeat them to her partner. It sounded like her vision was about a male this time, and not about Sarah. But whenever she asked Iden seemed unaware of the pronoun change.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14.**

 **Greenfield, California.**

Mulder wandered the campus for almost an hour before he was directed to the right building. He checked his little paper at the door – _Liam Wright, office 232, Miller Building_ – and knocked three times. A pen clicked inside, a chair groaned, and a voice came, "Come in."

He had a small office, stacked wall-to-wall with books. His desk was covered in papers and his poor computer was weighed down by hundreds of sticky notes. Mulder stepped inside and smiled politely at Dr. Liam Wright, associate professor of history, and held out his hand.

"Hello, Dr. Wright, my name is Fox Mulder."

Liam shook his hand, returning the smile, "Yes, I got a call from the front desk." He seemed pleasant enough, if not a little preoccupied at the moment. "What can I do for you?"

Mulder jumped straight into it, "I was wondering if you could tell me the story of the Reaper."

He looked startled, as if he had not heard those words in a long time. Liam seemed mild-mannered, almost geeky, and a familiar light spread into his eyes as he thought about this request. He reminded Mulder of Gene, and figured he must have the same reverence for stories.

But still, the man hesitated. "Oh. Sorry, it's just been a while… the Reaper?"

"Yes."

He adjusted his glasses, and folded his arms on the desk. "Well, it _is_ a local story. Old. Very old. It was started before droves of Americans came here to pan for gold, as a way to try and keep them out. It failed, of course, because California is lush and this area in particular is known for its fertile soils. It was just a borrowed story, really."

"I would like to hear it, if that's alright." Mulder pushed it a little, curious about the stalling. Liam seemed reluctant to say any more on the topic.

"It was about children, being spirited away." Liam almost smiled, and then caught himself. "I heard it from my grandmother. It came over from Romania, an adaptation of the story of the Haunted Forest, uh, the Hoia-Baciu Forest."

Mulder sat a little straighter. "Weren't there reported UFO sightings in that forest in the 60s?"

Liam snorted, "Yes, and many more strange things. It seems the people who lived near that forest were very unlucky. When their children were thought to have wanderlust, they scared them to death with stories about naughty boys and girls being dragged away into the trees, never to be heard from again."

"Do you think the story had any basis in reality?"

"What? Children being dragged into the forest by a mysterious force? No. How could it?"

"Every civilization has stories like that. Was there anything unique about this one? Are there any little details your grandmother might have emphasized?"

Liam thought a moment, and sat back in his chair, making it squeak. "Nothing comes to mind. It was exactly like this – children who wandered away from their parents or disobeyed their elders, or something like that, would end up near the woods one day. Something would drag them into the trees, and they were never heard from again."

"Do you think anything like that has ever happened here in California?"

"No… no… Well, there was that boy."

"Brian Winter."

"Yes. But that was the only child – the only person, really – to go missing in this area in a very long time. I think the story was just that, a story."

"Maybe."

Liam laughed. "But how would stories live on if no one believed in them?"

"Exactly. I try to believe as much as I can." Mulder glanced around the office, at the textbooks and papers all over, and decided where the focus was. "You study ancient Egypt?"

"Not professionally. I have a personal interest. Do you?"

"I know a lot of stories. Nephthys is the goddess of death, right?"

He raised his eyebrows and nodded, "Yes, along with her son, Anubis."

"Your story… the Reaper… Do you think it could be a metaphor for death?"

"When I was little and my grandmother would tell me that story, I thought it was about wolves. I never believed it was something unnatural." Liam drew a long, pointed breath. "But now it seems likely it was just that… just a metaphor. Children who wandered were prone to disappearing, whether it was wolves or the cold that killed them."

"Or the Reaper."

"Or the Reaper," Liam conceded, chuckling.

"So why would they use a story like that to try and scare off settlers?"

Liam shrugged, "If they thought their children might go missing, maybe they would be more cautious about coming here."

"Well, that was always a possibility. People who were willing to pack up everything and move across a vast country like this _had_ to have some guts. Hearing a story like that would hardly make them reconsider. So maybe the story wasn't borrowed. Maybe it came about on its own, because something terrible was going on in the woods."

Liam folded his arms, and said bluntly, "You think this story has something to do with those bodies they found?"

"I think this story is connected to the children who went missing."

Liam became a little more serious, and asked, "Where did you hear about the Reaper, Mr. Mulder?"

"Your aunt. I met her in the park."

Liam looked at him strangely, "What do you mean?"

"I met your aunt in the park and she told me to find you, to ask about the story."

"I only have one aunt, Mr. Mulder, and she's been dead for nearly twenty years."

Mulder stood up all at once, a chill gripping his heart. _No. Not again_. He groaned, in both fury and frustration, and went for the door. "Sorry to have bothered you."

"No, wait," Liam got up.

Mulder was out the door already, rushing down the hall, and when he saw the professor in his doorway he redoubled his speed. He hit the staircase, ran down, puffing, and left the building. It was cold outside but he hardly noticed it with the chill _inside_.

His story offered no real clues in his investigation, so Mulder justified his flight. He was only leaving to pursue other leads.

He was not running from another ghost.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15.**

 **San Diego, California.**

"You look rough."

Mulder stopped halfway down the hall when he heard that voice, and groaned again, because there was no better description for how he felt right now. He just wanted to find Sarah, and then go home and do his best to never see another ghost again.

Skinner frowned, tapping the door. "Let's talk."

Mulder let him in, and ran a pot of that instant coffee the hotel kept bringing them. It was awful, but energizing. He took up the only chair, leaning an elbow hard on the table, and Skinner sat on the foot of the nearest bed, his coattails spread out behind him.

"Did you find anything in Greenfield?"

"Yes… and no." Mulder sighed, and found himself talking without a filter. "I met an old woman who was around when Brian Winter disappeared sixty years ago. She saw him running into the woods crying, but she says he vanished."

"Did you get her name? We could-"

"No, no." Mulder rubbed his forehead, and decided to come clean. "She was… Getting her name won't help anyone. She's dead."

Skinner studied him. "I don't understand."

"She told me about a local story – about something called the Reaper – and I went to talk to her nephew to get more details. It was just one of those scary stories parents tell their kids. But when I mentioned her, he said his aunt had been dead for twenty years." Mulder got up, poured a cup of that terrible coffee, and sat back down, with his old friend's eyes on him all the while. "I've been… seeing things lately."

Mulder had known Skinner for a very long time, and through the years his expression never changed. He was a traditional person, confronted with the supernatural more than he would like. He showed that automatic rejection, and the struggle to overcome it, to try to understand things his mind wanted to write off.

He squinted at Mulder, and murmured, "Mulder… you can't be serious."

"I wish I was making it up. I feel like I'm losing my mind."

Skinner sat up a little straighter and rubbed his forehead, sighing, "When did this start?"

"Back in Kentucky, when I went to join a research team in a cave system. We were investigating local disappearances and… something happened to me. I almost drowned. When I woke up, there were three ghosts there with me – the Lone Gunmen."

"You _have_ to know that sounds insane."

"I do. I know that." Mulder took another bad sip of coffee and winced. "But knowing that won't make them go away. And that old woman…"

"If you can see ghosts, why don't you just find those kids and ask them what killed them?"

Mulder snorted.

"I was only half-joking." Skinner stood up and straightened his coat. "You and me, the woods, right now."

"Are you serious?" Mulder stood, but hesitated.

"Hey, a little girl is out there in the woods and we have no way of finding her. I'm tired of sitting around this hotel looking like an asshole."

"So you wanna go out there and look like an asshole?"

Skinner twisted his lips. "Beats doing nothing."

"You sound like me." Mulder crossed his arms, reluctant to go into the woods again. "And it doesn't even work like that. I only see them sometimes."

"If it helps us find the kid, why not try?"

He gave in, but only because Skinner seemed ready to go without him. He could do without another person going missing. Besides, he was right. If he could see ghosts, what would stop him from finding the spirits of the children killed by this monster? He might be able to ask them where Sarah was, or figure out what was causing all of this and stop it.

"Where is this treehouse of yours, anyway?"

"I'm sure we'll run into it."

Mulder was becoming convinced he had an all-access pass to the treehouse, and that belief was crystallized when they walked into the woods and the wind kicked up. He felt a gentle tug inside and headed toward it, with Skinner stomping alongside him.

They walked deeper and deeper, until it seemed they should have come out of the other end of the woods, until the canopy began to close up and the sunlight faded.

And then the forest cleared, and the treehouse made itself known.

Skinner stared at it, open-mouthed.

Mulder walked into the open and looked up at the dark thing. It would have been beautiful, if it was not so menacing, if he did not feel its predatory eyes on him, and know that it had taken Sarah and many other children. He was cautious because of that, and he walked slowly, carefully, trying to keep his sounds to himself.

He looked all around, at everything he could think of, but saw no signs of the children.

"Nothing," Mulder said.

Skinner nodded, "I don't like it."

"I get the feeling it doesn't like us, either."

"Have you tried.. cutting it down?"

"I'm not sure either of us would survive that."

He thought he felt eyes peering down at him, but he saw nothing through the dark hatch on the bottom of the treehouse. He took a step closer, his hand resting on the ladder.

Skinner was still captivated by it, but he managed, "Might not want to… climb that."

Mulder put his other hand on the ladder, the wood pulling on his limbs like a magnet. The darkness above was clearing and he could almost make out a shape inside. "There's something in there."

"Sarah?"

"No… Something else."

It was small, too small to be the missing girl, and too dark to identify. It had to be where the watched feeling came from. He put his hand up higher, grasped a high board, and pulled one foot up onto the ladder. His stomach erupted with warmth and every sense singled in on the figure. Its presence was intoxicating. Skinner spoke, but Mulder couldn't understand him.

He could feel it reaching out, closing a cold hand around his heart, and as he realized that the thrall had compelled him halfway up the ladder, he also knew that it was too late to break away. His head was foggy. He felt those eyes bearing down, until the weight was too much, and the figure shifted and came closer.

It reached out, formless, for his face.

One word broke through the fog.

" _Fox_!"

Her voice startled him and he let go of the ladder all at once, thudding to the ground. Skinner grabbed him by the coat and dragged him backward. Mulder scrambled to his feet, shaken, as the bottom hatch of the treehouse slammed shut with a resounding _bang_.

Her voice came again, more urgent, " _Fox_!"

Mulder turned toward the sound, "Iden?" It was coming from the woods, from the way they had come. He started running, Skinner on his heels, until the trees became thicker and the sound of her boots on the ground became unmistakable. "Iden!"

When he made it to her, he wrapped her in a hug, as concerned for her as he was for himself. His blood raced, the terror of the treehouse still alive inside. Iden held him just as tightly.

"I felt something," Iden said.

He crouched in front of her, zipping up her jacket in one motion. She looked cold, and even though that coldness probably had nothing to do with the weather, he had to do _something_. "What?"

"Sarah. I can feel her, but… it's like she's getting further and further away."

"What does she mean?" Skinner panted, and frowned at Iden. "Mulder?"

Iden looked at him, sheepish, "Whoops."

"It's okay." Mulder drew her attention, running his hand down the side of her face. "It's okay. Did you see anything else? Did you see where Sarah is?"

"No. I just feel her. She's cold, and hungry."

Mulder hated that Iden had to feel things like that, but her having a connection with Sarah was enough to give him hope. If she was still alive, he could still hope to save her. When he imagined that thing inside the treehouse, that shadowy figure, reaching out to snatch Sarah like it had tried to do to him, he shivered.

Skinner was still frowning at Iden, "Mulder?"

"I have something else to admit," Mulder said, though the last thing he wanted to do was tell _more_ people about her abilities. "Iden is… gifted."

"Are you joking?"

"I know this is a lot to ask you to believe, so I'll keep it simple. I trust her, and you said you trust me. So trust me." Mulder let his friend mull over that, and took Iden by the face again. He could see how afraid she was, and it evoked a visceral fear in him, too. "Hey, we'll find her. I know we will. We just have a lot of puzzle pieces right now and no box to look at. Okay?"

Iden nodded, her lip trembling.

Mulder stood and held her tightly against him, as much for her benefit as for his. He was glad that this monster had not taken Iden, and guilty for that, and determined to get Sarah back. If she were to die out there, shockwaves would travel through this family, and on Christmas of all holidays. Her cousins would never forget this, and Matthew would feel guilty for letting her wander off for the rest of his life. Iden would certainly bottle up this guilt. Scully would lose that desperate hope in her that they could be a normal family – and that terrified Mulder. With all of that at stake, his only conclusion was that they had to find her. They _had_ to.

Skinner tapped him on the shoulder, motioning behind them. The woods seemed different, now lacking the clearing they had been in only moments ago.

"It's gone."

Mulder was relieved. "It does that. Like a wraith. Stealthy for a big block of wood."

"What did you see in there?"

He wanted nothing more than to forget what he saw, but it might provide clues for the case, so he kept it fresh in his memory. "I'll tell you back in the room. I want to get out of these woods."

Skinner ran his hands over his head, sighing a deep kind of sigh. "What now? We have no leads on where the girl might be, or who – or what – took her. We have nothing."

Mulder agreed. He looked at the forest, feeling the same dislike for it that it seemed to have for them. Whatever was taking kids was lurking out there, watching, waiting.

And they had _nothing_.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16.**

 **Greenfield, California.**

It was gloomier than the first time he saw it, perhaps because he had come the first time with hope, and now he came with desperation. He scanned the field, the chalky white lines, the abandoned equipment stored in bins near the goals, the dark storefronts in the shade of wintering trees. It was chilly, and quiet, and free of the laughter of last time. It had been strangely warmer here when the ghost of that old woman was sitting on the bench, and without her, the sun refused to shine.

Her nephew was there instead.

Liam Wright sat rigidly on the bench, having noticed Mulder when he stepped out of his car. He was waiting for him. Mulder almost left to avoid that inevitable conversation, but he had nowhere else to go. He was here without leads, without answers, and Sarah was running out of time.

He sat beside the professor, squinting at the bright clouds that hid the sun. It was almost dusk, another day gone without finding her.

"Is this where you saw her?" Liam asked, looking out at the fields.

Instead of answering that question, Mulder posed his own, "You look awfully young to be her nephew. She died twenty years ago, and she looked late sixties when I saw her. How is that?"

Liam smiled fondly, his hand thrumming on the armrest. "Aunt April was my dad's half-sister. He was born way later than her, to a different father. I was only eighteen when she died." He looked over at Mulder, readjusting on the bench, "Is this where you saw her?"

"It is."

"She used to come here every day, just to sit. She brought me sometimes. It was because of that boy, Brian. She felt guilty for letting him walk off. I wasn't even born when it happened." He trailed off, thoughtful, and picked at some old paint. "You know, I never really believed those stories Grandma told me about the Reaper, until they found those bodies, and you came by."

Mulder was unsure of the connection, if there even was one, between the Reaper story and the missing children, but he nodded anyway. "The world is a strange place."

"Do you think she…?" Liam cut himself off, looking up hopefully, and then back to the ground. "Aunt April. She died so suddenly. I had hoped she found some kind of peace, after thinking about that boy most of her life."

Mulder said nothing, a little guilty to have revealed this unsettling fact to Liam. His aunt was not at peace, but still coming out here, still feeling the weight of that boy's disappearance.

"Here." Liam handed him a little card with a phone number on it. "If you need anything."

With that, the professor stood up and walked off, drawing his coat heavily about himself and setting a brisk pace. He never looked back. Mulder stowed the number in his jacket pocket, no closer to finding Sarah than before, but less frustrated now. He could confirm that the woman was a ghost, that she was related to the case but not pertinent to finding Sarah, and Liam seemed willing to believe it, if not a little sad about it. It could have been worse, it could have been better.

Mulder started to wander as dusk fell, following a path along the soccer field to the woods. It ran behind the concession stand, where the boy disappeared, and seemed well-beaten.

He had to ask himself how far he thought this thing could realistically travel. It was a large treehouse, heavy and obvious. Could it have really been here to grab up Brian Winter? How did it avoid the search teams that went looking for the boy? How did it find him? How did it target him? Someone would certainly notice a treehouse staking them out.

He tried to stay on the path, but something in his gut tugged him off of it. He strayed down a little hill, through a thicket and around some holly bushes, and then thought better of it and traced his way back. Only moments later he felt the tug again and walked, unthinking, in the same direction. His jacket caught on thorns and tore, and his boots swished through fallen leaves, and the light up above steadily faded. He lost the way back to the path.

But there was a clearing up ahead, and in it, a magnificent oak, and clinging to the branches was that same old treehouse.

It was here. His questions about its range were answered. It could have been here to pick up Brian sixty years ago, and it could have grabbed him from the path, leading him along like it did with Mulder. Why was _he_ here, anyway?

"Are you following me?" Mulder said, keeping his tone gentle.

He ventured closer, drawn to it, like he had been that night in the parking lot. A lovely warmth blossomed inside, spreading from his core to his limbs, to his lips, to his heels.

Something told him to look across the clearing this time, instead of getting lost in the magnificent thing, and he saw a face among the trees. It was a little boy, almost translucent, with wide, empty eyes. The warmth retreated as their eyes met, and he realized what he was seeing.

It vanished before he could say anything.

"Brian!" Mulder cried, running toward the trees. He circled the clearing, but the boy was gone for good. He left behind a sinister feeling. Skinner was right. If Mulder could just talk to him, ask him if he knew where Sarah was, he could get to her before she met the same fate.

Mulder stood there for several minutes, on the ground in front of the treehouse, waiting for another ghost to show up. Nothing came. He did get another feeling from the clearing though, this one a childlike curiosity. He felt something peering down at him, watching, waiting, and thought he heard a ghostly echo, like laughter.

It was laughing at him.

Here he was, face-to-face with the monster that had taken Sarah, and it was _laughing_.

"Give her back," he said, commanding, disturbing the silence of the clearing.

The curiosity shifted to malice. His skin prickled.

"Give her back!" he shouted.

Suddenly the wind around him began to whip, the leaves stirring and riling into a cyclone.

In the midst of it, through the noise, Mulder shouted again, "Give her back!"

A strip of wind struck his back, almost knocking him down, and another came at his legs. Mulder was brought to his knees.

He dodged a flying stick, and raised his voice, " _Give her back_!"

His final demand was met by an impossible wave of wind, which struck his chest and face. It was like belly-flopping on water from ten feet in the air. He was thrown, head over feet, through the trees, and he crashed and skidded, flailing, until he stopped in a jumble.

Mulder struggled to his knees, and the wind stopped all at once. He had been thrown over twenty feet into the forest, and the clearing was empty. The treehouse was gone.

" _Dammit_!" He slammed his fist into the ground, sending a tremor through his arm.

It was gone again, swifter than he could hope to follow, and it still had Sarah. He had another opportunity to help her, and he failed.

He climbed to his feet, circling the clearing again, wondering how an oak like that could just slither away without leaving any marks on the ground. He felt cold where it had been, and colder where the translucent boy had been, and even colder inside, where thoughts of finding a corpse instead of a living girl tormented him.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17.**

 **San Diego, California.**

Scully turned another page in a crumbling history book and sighed at its irrelevancy. She was looking into the disappearance of the first child, Brian Winter, and though towns like San Diego had a rich history and mountains of documentation, the little town of Greenfield only kept a few volumes telling the story of its past. Brian was not even born there. His birth certificate had been retrieved – at her request – from a tiny town further west, where tattered records showed that his parents had chosen to give him up shortly after birth.

His life had only been documented in one other place – the yearbook for his school. She thumbed through the 1950 edition, which focused heavily on sports teams and local events. Brian were there on his class page, smiling, in the last photo ever taken of him.

"Here it is."

Scully jumped as Skinner came back into the room. It had been so quiet that the doorknob turning sounded like thunder. Iden looked up, and then back to her coloring.

"Sorry," Skinner said at once, handing Scully a steaming cup of coffee and setting another on the dresser. He pulled a VHS from his jacket pocket and handed it over, "Now let's hope it still works after all this time."

It was a sleek black tape, stored with care in the archive section of the local news station. In bold blue letters on a white label, it read, "Brian Winter." It looked like no one had even played it since it was recorded, but Scully knew that hundreds of thousands of people had seen it.

"How long has it been since they put it on air?" she wondered.

Skinner shrugged. "Fifty years, maybe. People lose interest. Lucky for us they converted all the old stuff to keep in the archives."

"Yeah, lucky," Scully said halfheartedly. She was apprehensive about the tape. She had seen entire communities go into hysterics when one of their own went missing, even if they cared nothing for that person before their name was on the news. Brian was absent from most town records and he had no family to speak of – she had a feeling anyone wanting to comment on his disappearance would be doing it for their fifteen minutes of fame.

It opened to static, and then a reporter spoke,

" _What really happened to Brian Winter_?"

A bright, grainy field showed on screen, with a woman holding an old-fashioned microphone in the middle of the frame. She was standing in the soccer field that Brian Winter had gone missing from, peering importantly into the camera.

" _It happened here_ ," she began, waving her arm to indicate the field to the audience, " _I am standing by the soccer field in Greenfield, California. An unassuming and peaceful place where families bring their children to enjoy the outdoors. But on the tenth of December, 1950, twelve-year-old Brian Winter was just finishing up a community soccer match when tragedy struck. Witnesses say he simply vanished into thin air. The police believe Brian wandered into the woods that day and fell victim to a hidden ravine. Others say he was a very unhappy child and he ran away of his own volition. We have compiled testimony from people who knew Brian, the loving family who took him in, and the police officers investigating the case, hoping to answer the question of what really happened that day, and where young Brian Winter could be_."

"Real media sensation, this thing." Skinner sipped his coffee as an interview with a teacher began. He glanced at Scully. "But they only cared after he was gone."

It was like he sensed her revulsion, "A story is a story, and this one was popular."

"She said a family took him in, but we have nothing on that."

Scully shrugged. If someone took him in unofficially, there would be no proof of it anywhere. Who he was living with seemed unimportant. "Mulder said that all the other children seemed to be experiencing some kind of grief. If this thing is preying on sad kids, a little boy whose parents abandoned him is definitely a target."

"Well, we don't know-"

"Mulder's witness saw him crying that day, when he ran past her, right?"

Skinner groaned, "His witness wasn't exactly… credible."

Scully had faith in her partner, but she had to admit that when Skinner told her he had been getting witness statements from phantoms she was a little skeptical. Mostly she worried about him, worried that letting Sarah slip out of his fingers was eating away at him.

"What really happened to Brian Winter?" was a sad program. Brian was a sweet kid, if not a little somber. His teachers said he would often get distracted in class, daydreaming, and he seemed tired all the time. The soccer coach that was responsible for him on the day he vanished said he was prone to wandering off – though he may just have been avoiding blame. Police officers who were most likely retired or dead by now were stumped about what might have happened to him, and all they had to offer were their condolences.

 _How does a child just vanish into thin air?_ Scully thought, hoping that Sarah never became one of these sad stories. _Not even one person to notify_. _No one to care_.

Mulder made his entrance as the program was wrapping up. He sat politely on the end of the other bed and watched with them, looking absolutely haunted. Scully could not help looking away from the man being interviewed – a retired police officer who insisted that nothing like that had ever happened in Greenfield – to try and read the lines on her partner's face.

When the interview cut off and only static remained, Scully went straight to Mulder. She sat beside him and put her hand on his knee, and felt him give a gentle shudder at the contact.

"Hey," she murmured.

He met her gaze, and smiled, but the expression didn't reach his eyes. "Find anything?"

Scully pressed his knee, "We have a lot of records to go through. I was thinking if we could go back to before Brian Winter went missing, we could find out why this started."

He nodded, putting his hand over hers.

"Did you get any more insights from Greenfield?"

"No. But she must be buried somewhere, right? Like those other kids? It put me in the other cavity and blew the lid off its first hiding spot."

He was frustrated, because that meant the new hiding spot could be anywhere out in those woods, maybe anywhere in California. If the treehouse could move like Skinner said it could, Sarah could be buried anywhere.

Skinner took the tape out and came over, trying to reassure Mulder, "Someone had to start this. Someone had to spread that story, and someone built that treehouse."

Mulder got a little spark in his eye at that, and the curious side of him seemed to come out. "Yeah. Something had to build it, huh? Treehouses can't just build themselves. So someone built a treehouse and somehow imbued it with life… or died and started haunting it."

"I should get some sleep," Skinner said, clasping Mulder on the shoulder and nodding to Scully. "Big day tomorrow. We're holding a press conference, asking for any information people may have on the missing children. Should I…? Should I mention a treehouse?"

"No," Scully said at once.

"Be prepared for every loony to call in," Mulder said.

Skinner snorted, "I already blocked your number, Mulder."

Scully put the TV back to cartoons for Iden and scooted back on her bed, coaxing Mulder to join her. He rested his head on her stomach, so much taller than her that his legs hung off the end. She told him about the records she and Skinner had already gone through, about their expedition to town hall, and about how Charlie was doing. Mulder reciprocated with his own account of his trips to Greenfield, his expedition into the woods with Skinner, and his thoughts on the treehouse. He spoke about it with reverence and caution, and seemed absolutely determined that they would find Sarah and that she would be returned safely to her father.

"Gene would love this," Mulder said, in conclusion, after explaining how a shape-shifting monster might find itself in the form of a treehouse.

Scully smiled up down at his shiny eyes, picturing the biologist he had befriended months ago. Despite initial differences, the two oddballs had sparked quite a bond, exchanging emails and texts about mysteries and monsters on a daily basis. Gene would jump at the chance to study something like this – but last time she heard he was in Brazil trying to find signs that there was still a living dinosaur deep in the rain forest.

She used one hand to push his hair away from his forehead, and then kissed it. "We have a lot of records to go through from the town, to see if we can find anything predating the disappearance of Brian Winter, and they have a conference room downstairs."

He laughed this time, a welcome sound after all his brooding lately, "Sounds fun."

Scully put Iden to bed, armed her with a cellphone that had Mulder on speed dial, and had her deadbolt the door after them. Mulder carried the heaviest box, and Scully had the oldest, which nearly fell apart in her arms. Over the next several hours they laid papers carefully across a circular conference table and tried to find a catalyst.

Page by page, hour after hour, until night became dawn.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18.**

 **San Diego, California.**

His eyes were like red marbles, standing out against the forest. It wrapped around his neck like a snake, a hungry python, constricting and folding and growing longer as he struggled against it. His knees scraped the ice, his hands dug into the fabric, his chest lurched forward, and then backward, as he gasped one last exhale against the bondage.

Iden ran for him, but he seemed so far away. It was like the scarf was not just choking him, but dragging him off into nothingness.

She woke with that image still alive in her eyes, but she was aware immediately that she had been dreaming. She still looked around quickly for Fox, and gave a relieved sigh when she saw him fiddling with the coffee maker nearby. He looked absolutely gaunt, like he had not slept at all, but he was alive and breathing. Dana, who had sat on her bed to wake her, looked just as tired.

"Hi," Dana said, running her hand over Iden's forehead to push her hair away from it. Iden smiled reflexively, overwhelmed, as always, by the warmth her adoptive mother always showed her.

"About time you woke up. What time did you knock out?" Mulder asked, glancing back at her.

Iden shrugged, "I dunno. Late. What time is it?"

"It's only six. He's being dramatic." Dana shot a scathing look at Fox, and then presented Iden with a pair of folded jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. "Hop in the shower. I put a towel in there and I turned the heater on, so it should be nice and warm."

"What are we doing today?" Iden took the clothes and hopped out of bed, poking Fox in the side as she passed him.

" _You're_ going to stay with Tara and the kids," he said.

"But-"

"We'll find her," Dana said, still sitting on the bed. "Let us worry about it, okay?"

Iden wanted to argue that all she could do was worry about it, but it would do no good. Fox and Dana looked set on the matter, and when they were in agreement, it was impossible to change their decision. Plus she could see how tired they were already, and she didn't want to add to that.

It was much warmer and the snow was starting to melt. Iden slid through slush on her way up to the Scully house, marveling at it. She had lived in Virginia her whole life, and the snow there was much deeper and it lasted longer. She rarely ever got to play in this strange half-snow. Dana walked her up to the door and greeted Tara with a forced sort of smile, holding Iden by the shoulders.

"No news?" Tara asked immediately, hopefully.

"No. Mulder and I are going to join the search now."

"Bill just left. Come in, sweetheart," Tara stepped aside, inviting Iden in.

"Thank you for watching her, really," Dana said, her eyes lingering on Iden.

Iden twisted her lips, wishing she could stay with them and join in the search. But she also really wanted to lay down and take a nap. Her head was throbbing. Having a nightmare like that had kept her from really resting last night.

"Oh, it's not a problem at all. I just hope you find Sarah." Tara sounded sincere and afraid – everyone sounded afraid these days.

It was quiet in the Scully house, which was weird, because there were a lot of kids there. Iden strayed through the living room, leaving ice and mud on the floor, and watched Oliver and Thomas fiddle with the model cars they had gotten for Christmas. Their sisters were nearby, adjusting different sets of clothes on her curly-haired dolls and setting them all up in a line. Tara was in the rocking chair, clutching her new baby, Colton, and keeping an eye on all the others.

Iden thought they looked like one of those families she saw on TV, with the perfect, warm houses and the similar-looking children. She knew, deep down, that her little family could not afford a house like this, or a TV like that, or furniture like this – but she wondered if this was what they wanted. Was this what she wanted?

No.

She liked the way Fox woke her up with a water gun sometimes. She liked the little aliens he left around the house, and the way Frankie slept back-to-back with her. She like listening to Dana and Fox bickering, and then laughing, and seeing the way they looked at each other when they thought the other one wasn't looking. It was never quiet, or very clean, or particularly normal, but she much preferred it to this model house.

It was stuffy inside, so Iden went outside, and almost tripped over Matthew sitting on the back steps. He jumped up, defensive, and snapped, "Watch it!"

Iden stood her ground, snapping back, "Well, don't sit on the steps!"

Matthew snorted and dropped back to the top step, looking grouchier than she had ever seen him – and that was an accomplishment. He was much bigger than her, being something like thirteen and built like his tall father, but Iden was feeling fearless.

"You should have stopped Sarah from going into the woods," Iden stated.

Matthew looked up, scowling, and then dropped that expression for a miserable one. "I know."

Iden had nothing to say, because she had expected him to yell at her or try to push her down. His miserable agreement made her heart ache. She was suddenly sad, like Sarah was dead already and her cousin was out here feeling the blame for it.

"She would have gone anyway," Iden said.

"I could have stopped her," Matthew responded meekly, rubbing his head hard with his palm. He looked at the woods, a little hazy-eyed. "Dad is so mad at me."

Matthew had been a brat since they got here, but Iden was not mean-natured. She was good inside, warm and gooey like Fox at her center, so there was no chance she would kick her new cousin while he was down. She sat beside him on the step and mimicked his pose, sort of slouched over her raised knees, looking at the forest.

She didn't know what else to say.

When he finally spoke, Matthew had a gentle tremor in his voice. He sounded younger, less like a bully, like his father, and more like the other adults – sort of scared, sort of hopeful. "Dad said… well, he said that he overheard that… are you psychic?"

Iden started a little, and Fox jumped to the front of her mind. He was always warning her, always telling her to keep her secret. She told Sarah because of how close she felt to her, but the secret was heavy, and she never gave it away without great purpose. Matthew was the last person she expected to hear that question from. She just stared at him, uncertain, and waited.

Matthew spluttered, "If you were, I mean, and you could… if you knew if Sarah was okay…"

It came to her, not like a vision, but like an absolute truth. "Sarah is okay."

Her tone made Matthew tighten his jaw. He looked at the woods, "You can… You know?"

"Yeah. I know." Iden looked at the trees, too. She tried her best to explain what she was feeling, but it was complicated. "It's like… Sarah is a light, inside of me. I can feel it glowing. It gets brighter sometimes, and I think that means she's afraid. And it gets dimmer…"

"Is it dim now?"

"Yeah." Iden choked on that word, feeling that gentle light flickering inside. She could not explain her connection to Sarah, only that it seemed to be telling her the worst possible thing. "She doesn't have much longer, I think. She's so… cold."

Matthew stood up suddenly, dusting off his pants. "We have to go look for her."

Iden glanced reflexively at the back door, "But what about-?"

"Are your mom and dad psychic, too?"

Iden stood up, hesitating, and then shook her head.

Matthew looked fierce, "Well, I know my dad isn't. So they're just out there and they have no idea where she is. But we can find her. We have to find her."

He seemed so determined, and he seemed to believe in what she felt, even when Fox and Dana were a little skeptical. Iden found herself walking toward the woods. He was right, after all. She had a feeling that the adults could be out there looking all day, combing the woods, calling out her name, and they would never find her.

"I thought you hated her," Iden said as the woods closed around them.

Matthew started up a quick pace, a sort of frantic march through the trees, and answered breathlessly, "I don't hate her."

"But you said all those mean things."

"I was being… a jerk."

"Oh." Iden remembered Fox telling her that sometimes people said things they didn't mean, and regretted them later. Matthew must be regretting it, now that Sarah was in danger.

Matthew stopped so suddenly that Iden ran into him. He looked at her, and then at the ground, "Did she…? Did she leave because of me? Did she say anything to you?"

Iden shook her head. "No. And she didn't leave because of you. She thought you were stupid and wrong."

"I'm not stupid," Matthew said, starting up their march again.

"You were _acting_ pretty stupid."

He didn't deny that.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19.**

 **San Diego, California.**

It was early afternoon. Search teams were still out there combing the woods, sometimes passing right by the windows of the records office, and Mulder longed to be out there with them. But one of the agents Skinner brought in to analyze the miniscule details of the case had found something interesting and they were plucked from their posts, to gather here around a table and stare at a moldy old newspaper with faded lettering.

Scully was the first to speak, when they had all read over the legible parts of the page. "It was published around the time of the first disappearance. Do you think this could be it, Mulder?"

His mind was working on overdrive. He read the paragraph over and over. _Declan Wright, 58, passed in his sleep Saturday night._ _Despite the townspeople suspecting Declan Wright of foul play in the choking death of five-year-old Harrison Wright fifteen years ago, the local judge at the time refused to bring him to trial, declaring the death an awful tragedy and nothing more. He died still in denial that he played a role in his son's death. Services will be held…_

"Pretty obvious whoever wrote this thought Declan Wright should have been in jail," Skinner said. "But no one who was alive then could be alive now, let alone out there abducting kids."

Scully glanced at him, clearly wishing to join him in his logic, but then her eyes journeyed to Mulder and she seemed to doubt her instincts. "Mulder… the date… it fits."

"I have to make a phone call," Mulder said, excusing himself from the stuffy office to stand in the hall. If he was right, the end to this desperate search could be in sight.

But as soon as the door closed he experienced a wave of nausea. It hit him again, but harder this time. If the connection in his head was true, this phone call could be enlightening. It could be the end of this nightmare and they might find Sarah alive, and maybe the families of the dead kids could find some peace. So why was he hesitating?

"Ghosts again, huh?"

Mulder jumped, finding that he was not alone in this hallway. It was just Frohike this time, like it often was these days, and he had returned to knitting his invisible sweater. His chubby hands worked furiously in front of him, bearing needles Mulder would never see.

He tried his hardest not to glare at his former friend, aware that anyone could come by and notice him acting strangely on his own.

"Go away," Mulder mumbled under his breath, plucking a card from his pocket and dialing the number that Liam Wright had written down for him. He turned away from the ghost, focusing instead on the old-fashioned wallpaper behind him.

Liam picked up on the third ring, with a somber, "Hello?

"It's Fox Mulder."

Liam was quiet for a moment, and then his voice came back a little nervous. Perhaps he had not expected Mulder to ever use this card. "What can I do for you, Mr. Mulder?"

"I came across an article, and the name Wright is in it. I wanted to ask you about it."

Mulder listened to the story with his mouth set in a grim line, leaning there and avoiding eye contact with the ghost who tried very hard to disrupt his conversation. His little glimmer of hope became more concrete with every word, and the mystery that plagued this awful holiday withdrew like mist racing across water.

When the call ended, he stood in thoughtful silence.

"I suppose you heard what you wanted to hear," Frohike said, now mimicking his posture on the same side of the hall. His face was grim. "So why the long face?"

Mulder looked fully at his old friend, forgetting for the moment that others could not see the stout man standing beside him. "I… I keep thinking we might be too late. I just have this bad feeling."

"So to counter that feeling, you're stalling?"

He grimaced. "Go away," he repeated, and slipped back into the records room. His entrance drew the attention of his colleagues. Scully and Skinner drew their heads apart and waited, and the agent who had discovered the article twiddled her fingers nervously.

"Harrison Wright," Mulder began, motioning to the article.

Scully spoke first, "Who did you call?"

"Liam Wright, the professor I met in Greenfield. His grandmother was married to Declan Wright."

Her interest flickered like a candle had come to life behind her eyes. "You spoke to that woman in the park. Liam was her nephew, right?"

"Right." Mulder took a deep breath. "Liam only knew a little about what happened. He said Declan had a drinking problem and a short fuse. One day he took a scarf from Harrison's sister, April – that was the woman I spoke to in the park – and used it to choke him to death, in his own treehouse. Declan died fifteen years later, under suspicion of having killed Harrison. He never went to court, even though the whole town knew what he had done. He was friends with the judge."

It was a simple, and horrifying, solution to this mystery of theirs. Mulder put all the pieces together in his head, like a sick puzzle.

"I think this all started with Harrison. He was murdered, and his father was never charged in his death. His spirit is doing this. He somehow… he became the treehouse." He cut himself off, realizing something. "She knew. April knew it was him, when Brian went missing. She was guilty her whole life because she _knew_ it was Harrison."

Scully wasted no time speaking up, "How does this help us? How can we use it?"

"We need to go the treehouse where he died."

"Did he tell you where to find it?"

"Yes."

"What do you expect to find there?"

"Maybe he put Sarah there. Maybe we can find a way to put him to rest, or burn that thing down, if it comes to that."

Scully had always put a strange amount of faith in him, and she didn't let him down this time. She shrugged into her coat and headed for the door, stopping to talk to Skinner as she went. "You need to send the police that way. We already know how dangerous it is."

Mulder jotted down the address, "Here."

Skinner caught his hand, looking very serious. "Tell me this isn't just a hunch."

"We have something here. I can feel it." Mulder pulled away from him, heading for the door, not even glancing back to see if his former boss believed him.

Ever since she went missing, Mulder had failed this girl over and over, and he was going to make up for it now. He was going to get Charlie his daughter back, and Scully her niece back, and Iden her friend back, and end this cycle of death started by a monstrous father so many years ago.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20.**

It came out of nowhere, all at once, like they had been sprinting without noticing. Iden caught the chill in the air, felt it burrow down into her lungs and take root. Matthew seemed to draw himself up, trying to appear bigger, but suddenly they were both very puny things.

In a clearing, in a strange stretch of dead and dying woods, stood the treehouse. It looked different now, not highlighted in a beam of light like it usually was, but sort of dreary and dark. Iden swallowed, and felt her pulse beating in her throat. It made her uneasy. Her blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Whatever had drawn her in before was now repelling her. Deep down, in the wildest parts of her brain, her senses were telling her to run away. This was a bad place and only bad things could happen here.

"Iden…" Matthew whispered, taking a few steps back, but not seeming to go far. It was like they were standing on the sand before ocean waves, slowly sinking, barely noticing in their awe.

She knew what he wanted, and that she was going to say no, even before he spoke. Iden stood her ground, bravely, as the feeling of unease continued to grow. Something else was growing. Her light began to shine violently. Sarah was in that eerie treehouse and time was running out. She was plagued with the same sense of urgency she had gotten the first night she saw that red scarf in the woods. Iden could not leave her now.

"I can feel her," she told Matthew, forcing her voice to be strong. She walked toward the tree, placing her hand on the ladder. Matthew followed, obviously struggling with every step.

She climbed, trying to push away her fear, but by the time she reached the trap door at the bottom, she was trembling. She pressed her shaking hand to the wood and opened it, flinching as the door crashed on the inside. But there, she froze. She was so afraid of what she might see inside, she just clutched herself tight to the ladder and closed her eyes.

Matthew put his hand on her shin, "Go on. I'm right behind you."

He was. Iden opened her eyes and found him halfway up the ladder below her, leaning around her frozen body and looking a bit more determined than he was afraid.

Iden held onto the ladder like someone was trying to pry her off, suddenly afraid the treehouse would suck her up. "I can't," she whispered, trembling. "You go first."

Matthew climbed around her, puffing himself up before he stuck his head through the hatch. He gave a frightened shout and scrambled inside. Iden followed immediately, shaken from her fear.

It was dark inside, but Sarah was so pale that she glowed a little. She felt like she was made of ice. Her eyes were closed, her face perfectly tranquil.

Matthew hunched over Sarah, looking horrified, "Is she dead? Oh, god!" He fumbled at her arms, squeezing her wrist, and then he touched her neck. He sat in silence for ten tense seconds, and then shouted, "She's alive!"

Iden grinned a stupid, happy grin, and Matthew returned it.

"Okay, okay," Matthew said, sliding around and lifting up her torso by her underarms. "You grab her legs. We gotta get her out of here."

Iden went to help, but the chill of the treehouse seemed to deepen at that moment, and a strange, melodious laughter danced at the edge of her hearing. Matthew heard it too. He set Sarah down and crossed his arms tightly, unnerved. He looked suddenly smaller.

Whatever he was saying was blotted out by a sudden, screaming voice. It was a girl, but no one that Iden had ever met. Her screams were like nothing Iden had ever heard – so full of terror, of pain, so loud that they tore from her throat and ricocheted through the trees. " _Daddy_!" the voice cried, and Iden hunched over and clapped her hands over her ears to block it out. " _Daddy_!"

She was next aware of Matthew shaking her, and plucking her hands from her ears. It was darker in the treehouse. The hatch was shut. Outside, the trees were quaking and leaves stirred violently in a circle. It grew ever colder, like they were plunging into the ocean.

"What is it? What is it?" Matthew demanded of her, holding her wrists.

"Did you hear it?" Iden asked, puzzled. It was still ringing in her head, the desperate cries of that girl, but the worst of it had passed.

"I heard laughing."

"I heard… something else." Iden scooted to the window, looking out at the swirling leaves with both horror and apprehension. Matthew was on his knees, trying to shake his cousin awake.

Finally, with a gasp, Sarah awakened.

Her first word came out garbled, "…what?"

Matthew stopped shaking her, letting her lie still to gather herself. He and Iden sat on either side, waiting for something, both unsure what that something might be. Matthew kept glancing out the window at the thrashing leaves. Sarah was white like a ghost, so pale that a new line of freckles had appeared over the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were hazy and she began to tremble from head to toe. Her dry, cracked lips produced little bubbles of blood when she tried to speak again.

Iden quieted her, placing her hands delicately on her face, modeling her behavior after Dana. "Do you remember what happened?"

Sarah gave up her effort to talk and just shook her head, looking like she wanted to cry, but there were no tears. Her lip only trembled, and one of the little dots of blood rolled down her chin.

Iden glanced at Matthew, and they shared a strange, grim knowledge. "You're in the treehouse," Iden said carefully. "You went missing. We came to find you."

Sarah seemed far away. She tried to sit up on her elbow, but exhaustion flattened her.

"We should get home," Matthew said, crawling over to the hatch. He tugged at it, but it didn't move. Iden went over to help him, and they pulled desperately for several minutes.

Iden felt like there were worms crawling around in her stomach, "Why won't it open?"

Matthew clawed at the edges, cursing in frustration. When it was obvious that the door wasn't going to budge, he sat back, defeated, and looked at the girls. "We're trapped."

There was something ominous about his expression, about his tone. He reminded Iden suddenly of a nature documentary, where the prey finally stopped fighting when it was locked in the jaws of a predator. She thought of those final moments, as a gazelle struggled against encroaching hyenas, and still tried to be brave. It was what Fox and Dana would have done, she knew. But she was shaking just as much as Sarah, holding herself just as tightly as Matthew.

Outside, she could feel the monster stirring.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N:** Happy new year everyone! I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this story!

 **XxX**

 **Chapter 21.**

It was becoming violently windy outside. Matthew gave up trying to climb through the window or over the balcony when a branch whacked him in the back of the head. It was like the treehouse wanted them to stay here. Iden felt its tumultuous emotions like she had felt the light from Sarah. It was like a waking vision she could not escape. She was afraid and alone, so unbelievably cold, so confused and shaken. Something awful had happened here.

Matthew, Iden, and Sarah sat like three little penguins, huddled together on the wall furthest from the chilly balcony, both Sarah and Iden pressed as closely as they could get to Matthew, who was larger and dressed more warmly. Sarah still trembled, unable to speak except for some random murmurings about water, and Iden worried that if they stayed here much longer, their rescue would turn into a recovery. She was a bookworm, and many of the books she read were about survival against insurmountable odds – but the hero usually lost someone along the way. Sarah was fading. Coming this far only to have her die seemed too tragic to be real.

"I think my dad will find us, and your dad," Matthew was saying. His teeth were chattering but he seemed unable to stop talking. He was scared, Iden could tell, and talking made him feel better. "Dad said he used to be in the FBI, and aunt Dana, too. They do this all the time, right?"

Iden nodded, though he was really just talking to himself at this point.

"We should keep an eye out, in case they show up."

She agreed. Iden had been watching the window from their little corner for over an hour, hoping in vain that she would see someone, anyone, walking through these dreary woods. But she gradually lost hope, and started watching just for the sake of looking at something other than old, rotting wood.

It was when she had finally decided they were all going to die here that she saw them.

Dana was a flash of color among the gray trees. She had red hair and she wore the intense blue coat that Fox had gotten her for Christmas this year. Iden thought she had never been so happy to see anyone. She clambered to the window, flinching at the rushing wind surrounding their prison, and started yelling at the top of her lungs.

"Help! Dana! We're up here! _Dana_!"

Iden had no idea how Dana had gotten here, no idea if this was just an illusion, but the biggest, dumbest grin spread over her face as she hung out the window, calling out to her. Dana looked up sharply, and through the swirling leaves Iden caught a look of surprise and fear. In the next moment, Fox was right beside her, that look echoed in his face. More people arrived, standing on the fringes of the freakish windstorm that enveloped the treehouse, wearing police uniforms and black FBI jackets. The wind slowed infinitesimally, and Iden knew it was time.

She crawled back inside and mobilized Matthew. They half-carried, half-dragged Sarah to the hatch, and with a little tugging, it finally opened. Matthew looked astonished. He went down first, and Iden slid Sarah down by her legs. He was strong, but the weight of her body against his made him slip down the ladder and land with a thud on the ground below. Iden scurried after them.

In her desperation, Iden jumped upright and made a run for Dana. She wanted nothing more than to be wrapped up in her arms.

Dana shouted something, appearing horrified, and Iden had just enough time to see a streak of red as Dana tackled her to the ground. It was the scarf. Iden wriggled out from under Dana, and let out a cry of horror as she discovered what had happened. Dana was clawing at her throat, now wrapped in scarlet, as the scarf tightened its grip. It was just like her dream, just like the red snake that had tried to kill Fox, only it was painfully, brutally real this time.

Fox was on her in an instant, trying to rip the scarf off, shouting something that was stolen away by the wind. Dana's eyes bulged and her mouth opened, but she couldn't breathe.

"Help me!" Matthew called.

Iden turned from the awful scene to find Matthew struggling to drag Sarah through the leaves, branches pelting his broad back. Iden couldn't help him. She was frozen to the spot. It was like she had used all her bravery already and now she was empty.

In that spot, she had the perfect view.

Beyond the trees, past the mass of bodies streaming in to try and free Dana from the scarf, there was a man standing all alone. He was a ghost. He had to be. Iden could almost see through him. It was like looking at an old painting on glass, its details chipped away, but the subject still discernible. He was staring at the scene with quiet indifference, like he wasn't really seeing it.

Iden cried out, "Stop!"

His eyes jerked to hers and, like he had been submerged under an icy lake for years and years and years, life flooded into him. He took a short, startled breath, and then vanished.

When the glass man was gone, the wind stopped. Leaves and sticks dropped limply to the ground, pelting the disturbed snow and bonking some unsuspecting officers on the head. Skinner came running through the fray, passing a knife to Fox, and together they managed to cut away the scarf. Dana sat up, gasping, and Fox held one of her shoulders tightly. Someone ran toward the tree and grabbed Sarah, running off while the girl flailed like a doll in their arms. Matthew took a few steps to follow, but then came toward Iden instead, sinking to his knees beside her.

It seemed like forever that they sat there, with the police buzzing around them. Dana was escorted the same way they took Sarah, with Fox torn for a moment about where he should go. Skinner ended up staying with Iden and Matthew, patting Matthew on the back while he vomited.

"We came to find her," Iden explained, when Skinner asked how they had gotten there.

He snorted, and his expression reminded her of Dana when Fox was telling them a story about aliens. "You and Mulder deserve each other, kid."

Matthew got his legs back eventually, and Skinner walked them out of the woods. Iden marveled at how close to the edge they had been. Beyond the trees was an old house covered in dead vines, looking as welcoming as a nail in the eyeball. Skinner put a firm hand on her shoulder and forced her on when she tried to stop to investigate a glimmer of movement inside.

"Best let that be," he said in a low grumble.

Fox and Dana were sitting together in the open back of an ambulance, where Dana seemed to be negotiating with the medics in a croaky voice.

"You should go to the hospital, let them look you over," Fox advised. At a venomous look from Dana, he only smiled. "What would you say if it was me?"

She shrugged noncommittally, "You have to take Matthew home."

"Skinner can take him home," Fox said immediately.

Dana seemed more sure of this than she was of her own health. "Please, take him home."

Matthew was standing there beside Iden, quaking from head to toe, seemingly unaware of what they were saying. It was warmer now that the treehouse was behind them, but the cold had a way of winding into their veins. Iden put her hand on his arm to draw his attention, and said softly, "Come on. Get in the car."

He followed her out into the maze of police cars and vans, to the rental they had gotten on their first day in California, and settled into the backseat with Matthew. She had her family, she realized, and he needed his. Everything was better after a big hug from mom.

Fox joined them eventually, sitting and looking back at Iden before he started the car. His eyes were warm. "I guess you went to find her."

"Yeah," Iden admitted.

"You know, you scared the crap out of both of us today."

"I scared the crap out of me, too."

He chuckled, "Well, I guess that counts for something. How about next time you get a hunch, you call one of us and we come help you check it out?"

Iden thought of having Fox or Dana to hold onto during the ordeal with the treehouse, and nodded vigorously. "You got a deal."

He was smiling as he drove them off, but it slowly slipped into a tired frown. Iden sagged against her seat. Matthew gradually stopped shaking, but every now and then he would quiver. Fox made a lot of phone calls – some to Charlie, another to Tara, and then a longer one with Skinner, who had gone off to the hospital with Dana.

Iden thought about the glass man, unsure how to bring it up to Fox, and uncertain if she really wanted him to know about it. What she had seen in his eyes seemed private somehow.

She settled on an innocuous question.

"Fox… what is it?"

He stared forward, without a glance at her in the rearview mirror, and said, "I thought… Iden… something terrible happened here a long time ago. Terrible things have a way of living on."

Iden turned her attention to Matthew as they neared the Scully house, where she might say goodbye to him for the last time this holiday. He looked a lot like Bill, all big and brown-haired, with small blue eyes and a blocky face, but he was a lot different. He believed in her abilities. He was willing to walk out into the woods to find Sarah and he admitted that he had made a mistake when he let her wander off by herself. Fox was always telling her how people could change.

"How does your stomach feel?" Iden asked him.

Matthew gave her a meek smile, folding his arms tightly, "Better, I guess."

Iden lowered her voice to a whisper, "I'm glad you believed me. I think we saved her life."

He seemed to glow at that, but he looked quickly at the window to escape her eyes. He was uncomfortable, maybe uncertain if he should go back to being a brat.

"I don't think you're stupid," Iden added, turning back to face the front.

It was a warm scene at his house. Tara came running out to embrace her son, and Matthew shook like a leaf in her arms. Iden thought it was odd, seeing such a large, confident boy clutching his mom like that, but it also made her feel better about running for Dana in the woods. It must have been something about moms.

Bill came out slower than Tara, sort of storming, stomping his feet like he expected them to make more noise in the soft snow. He patted Matthew on the head, and then came right up to Fox.

"He could have been hurt!" Bill boomed, making everyone jump at the sudden volume. "Of all the irresponsible… I can't _believe_ this…

Iden expected Fox to square up to him like he had during their first argument, but he stayed right where he was. He only gave one sign that he was irritated by Bill – a little twitch in his jaw – and the rest of him stayed serene.

"Matthew is fine. The paramedics looked him over."

"That's not the point!" Bill shouted back.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Since you got here, all of this started! First it was Sarah, and then Matthew! My _son_!"

"He chose to go! I wasn't even here for that!"

"Your kid was. She forced him into it, led him out there to get lost in the woods in the dead of winter!" Bill pointed accusingly at Iden, and she stepped sideways to hide behind Fox's arm, all of that warmth from before draining away.

Fox stiffened. "Iden is a nine year old girl. Are you insinuating she somehow dragged Matthew into the woods? Do you really think she _forced_ him to do anything?"

It looked like the men were really going to fight this time, and without Charlie to come and break them up. But before Bill could cause any more problems, Matthew jumped between them. He looked at his father with wide, wet eyes, still pale from his experience in the woods.

"Dad, no. I wanted to go. It my was my idea."

Bill stared blankly at his son for several seconds, and then seemed to forget that Fox and Iden were standing there. He dropped into a crouch and took Matthew by the arms, his voice becoming impossibly tender. "Why would you do that? You could have been hurt. You know Sarah went missing, and then your mom couldn't find you. We were so worried."

Matthew had tears in his eyes and seemed to want nothing more than to go back to his mother to be held again, but he stood his ground. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to help."

It was their moment, sweet and private, but Iden could not look away. She was getting her first look into the way that people were layered, how they could be so hard and angry on the surface, but very different on the inside. When it came to Fox, this man was aggressive, but when it came to his son, he was someone completely different.

Fox put his hand on her shoulder, drawing her toward the car. "We have to go," he said, addressing his adversary, though Bill was still looking at his son. "Dana is in the hospital with Sarah. She got some bruises they wanted to look over before we fly back to Virginia."

Bill looked away from Matthew at last, his hard blue eyes falling on Fox. He lost some of that tenderness as he responded, "You go ahead. I'll be right behind you."

"I want to go, too," Matthew said, wiping his face with his sleeve.

"Matty…" Tara murmured, half-heartedly, stepping closer.

Bill glanced at his wife, and then put a hand on top of Matthew's head. "Not just yet. I want you here with your mother."

Matthew withdrew from the contact, looking defiant, "I have to go, Dad."

Fox spoke up, and the sound of his voice made Bill tense. "I think you should stay home for now. Sarah has been through a lot. She'll probably sleep for a while. I'm sure your dad will take you to see her when she's a little stronger."

Bill looked at Fox incredulously, and Fox looked back with a tired, tranquil expression. Iden could not fathom what he might be thinking, but something in his eyes seemed different. He took her by the hand and walked her to the car, saying nothing else to the family behind them. Iden kept her eyes on them, watching Bill, and Bill stared hard at Fox's back.

Iden was still trying to decipher the situation when they pulled up at the hospital. Fox turned the car off, unbuckled, and sat there, saying nothing.

"What are you waiting for?" Iden asked.

Fox shrugged, resting his forehead on the wheel. When he finally looked up, his eyes were a little shiny. He patted Iden on the head, like Bill had done to Matthew, and said, "Nothing. It's just been a long day and I'm ready to get home."

"Me too. Frankie is probably sick of Dalton by now. He wears too much cologne."

Fox snorted. "I bet you're right."

"Well, let's go get Dana and go home. Can we?"

"Not just yet." He looked up at the emergency room doors, which were sliding open to admit a few people. "I have something to do before we leave California."

"Is it about the treehouse?"

"Mhm."

Iden glanced at the emergency room doors. "Are you coming in?"

"Just for a little while. Come on. I know Dana wants to scold us. We shouldn't keep her waiting any longer."

Iden barely paid attention to the hospital, which bustled all around her. She was aware of Fox on the phone, talking to one adult or another about what had happened and where they were. Charlie was the first familiar face they ran into, pacing outside a door.

He came up to Iden immediately and wrapped her in an unexpected hug. "Mulder told me what you did for Sarah," he said, crouching down and holding her hands, his eyes red like he had been crying before they got there. He had blue eyes, like Dana, and they were just as warm. Iden realized that all three siblings looked strangely alike, and very different. "You were very brave."

"How is she?" Fox asked.

Charlie released Iden and glanced at the door, smiling nervously, almost gleefully. "Starting to come out of it. They said she was in the last stages of hypothermia. If she had been out there alone any longer…" He paused, looking again at Iden. "If no one had come along to keep her warm, she might have died before the police found her."

Iden wondered if that was really true, but she glowed anyway. She felt the same pride she had when Dana told her that Katie Whitehead was safe, after Iden had suffered terrible visions of her death. Sarah was going to be okay, and it was at least partially because of her.

"Dana is a few doors down," Charlie offered. "She seems fine. Kind of croaky."

Fox and Iden walked down the hall, passing open rooms with sick people lying mostly motionless under dimmed lights, until they found Dana. She was sitting on a small bed, covered in blankets at the waist, and her neck was turning shades of red and purple. Skinner sat beside her in a flimsy chair, picking through a magazine.

"Wow, they give rooms to anybody these days," Fox commented as they stepped inside. He grinned at Dana, and she grinned back at him. "How many weeks of rehab, soldier?"

Dana rolled her eyes, opening her arms for Iden to climb into bed with her. Dana was warm enough to chase away the squirmy, cold feeling Bill had given her. "I can leave whenever I want."

"I don't know, you look pretty delicate to me. Maybe a few more weeks in Cali?"

Fox sat on the bottom of the bed, recounting what had happened at the Scully house. He downplayed the almost-fight a little, but made sure he told Dana how brave Matthew was. Iden insisted on it.

"You should have let Matthew come," Dana said, stroking Iden's hair.

" _Sometimes_ I have to agree with Bill," Fox responded, a light smile on his face for the first time since Sarah had gone missing.

"What are you going to do… about it?" Dana asked.

Skinner came to attention at that, "Burn it down?"

Fox shrugged, "I think I'll visit Greenfield one more time. I just have a feeling about it." He stood up, patting Skinner on the shoulder. "Can you give Scully a ride back to the hotel?"

"You sure you should keep messing with that thing?" Skinner asked.

Dana only smiled, clutching his hand for a moment, "Be careful."

"Well, to both of you, I'm not nine and it hasn't been fifteen years, so I think I'll be okay."

He left them there, and for once Iden had no desire to follow him. She hoped he would find some miraculous cure for that wicked thing, and stop anymore kids from falling victim, but her mind wandered away from it almost immediately. She snuggled close to Dana, giving a vague mention of the glass man she had seen, and how she wanted to see Frankie again, and sleep in her own bed. Dana assured her that they would be going home soon, maybe that very night.

Dana slid out of bed when the nurse came to discharge her, and gave Iden a tight squeeze, "You see? If I had any other kid, we would have lost Sarah. I need you just the way you are."

Iden had almost forgotten her worried earlier, that Dana and Fox might want a normal kid instead of a strange one like her. It seemed so silly now.

"Can we go home now?" Iden asked.

Dana moved to the wheelchair the nurse brought in, rubbing her neck. "As soon as Mulder gets back. Unless you want to leave him in California."

"I think he has the house keys on him."

"Oh. Well we better wait then, huh?"

Iden grinned, and followed Dana, the nurse, and Skinner down the hall. She thought of the glass man on the way back to the hotel, the way he seemed to fade into the forest, and of the treehouse. For hours she turned the pieces around in her head.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22.**

It was warmer in Greenfield, after an unusually chilly holiday. Mulder sat alone on the bench near the soccer field, watching delighted children slide around in the rapidly melting snow. He thought of that little boy again – Brian Winter – and the short drive to the old Wright house, and the dreary treehouse in the woods. Someone must have loved him, wondered where he had gone, thought about him late at night when everyone else was asleep. He might have been very close to home all that time, like Sarah, wasting away in the treehouse in a sort of trance. It was the cold, not the starvation or the dehydration, that killed them in the end. Other things came later, but the cold was crippling. It was the kind of cold that could only be left behind by a broken heart.

She came ten minutes into his vigil, sitting beside him and holding that purse in her lap. Mulder was uncertain how much the dead knew about the living world, so he told her,

"We found Sarah. She's alive."

April breathed a sigh of relief, releasing that strong grip she had on her purse.

"How old were you when Harrison died?"

"I was nine." April surprised him by responding immediately, with no question about how he knew about Harrison, or how he knew that he was her brother, and that he had died when she was young. She went on, like she had been waiting to tell this story her whole life, "I could never forget the sound of him choking, the way all the birds stopped singing to listen."

"You were just a child." Mulder quelled the rage he felt inside, the feeling he got whenever he thought of someone harming an innocent child. "There was nothing you could do."

"It was my scarf. I let him play with it."

Mulder felt a jolt. "What?"

April looked over, remarkably lifelike for someone who had been dead for twenty years. "I let him play with it, and I was supposed to be watching him."

Mulder shuffled his thoughts, dropping their accusing obituary out of them to open his mind to what she was saying. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"He was in the treehouse, using my scarf as a catapult to throw rocks at the trees. I was supposed to be watching him." April sighed, looking down at her bag. "He slipped. I heard his feet… on the ice… I thought he was just joking. But then I heard him… choking. He had fallen, and his head went through the loop, and he spun, and it just wrapped around his throat. I ran to get Daddy."

She sat silently for a little while, dabbing invisible tears from her face, and avoiding looking at him. Her eyes found the forest, rested there.

"Daddy did everything he could, but Harry was gone before he even got there. He was devastated. He died that day, really. His eyes… his eyes were so empty, like the life had been sucked right out of him. Our mother… she told me what to say, to lie to the judge, but he wouldn't hear it. He knew Daddy would never hurt Harry. We moved away, and my mother remarried, and Daddy spent fifteen years in misery and isolation, blamed for a death he would have done anything… _anything_ … to…"

Mulder saw it then, in perfect color, and his breath caught in his throat. "It was your dad, all these years? You knew it. You had to."

She nodded miserably. "I felt so guilty when Brian went missing. I just knew… I just had this feeling about it. Every fifteen years." She dabbed her eyes again, sniffling. "I never went to see him, you know. When everything happened and my mother moved me away, I never went back to see Daddy. I could have. I had plenty of chance. He called on me, sent me letters, and I just ignored him because I wanted to forget what happened. Harry dying put a knife in his heart, you know, and I spent my life _twisting_ it."

"Maybe you should go back."

She looked at him like he was insane. "Go back?"

"Your father is out there, still alone in that treehouse. I think… sometimes I think people stay around after they die because they have something they have to finish. I think you and your dad are both still here because of that. I think you should go back."

April drew a deep, shaking breath, and said nothing.

Mulder looked to the forest, which seemed so peaceful now. Just a few hours ago he had been out there, battling the wind, trying to rip a murderous scarf away from Scully, and now the puzzle had all its pieces. It was not a little boy out there, but his memory, kept strong by the misery of his devastated father. It was not a haunting, but an impression, like a leaf landing on wet concrete. It was all the brokenness that came from losing a child so tragically. Declan must have spent years up there, wasting away, thinking about his boy, and when he died, that pain lived on.

He had imagined he was supposed to burn the treehouse to stop this from happening, but now a new solution came to his mind. He looked sidelong at April, who had been coming here and dwelling on the past for all of her life, and her afterlife, and held out his hand.

She looked at him, blinking.

"Come on. We can go together."

April stood up and took his hand, her fingers a brush of ice on his skin, and suddenly she was not an old woman anymore. She was a girl, barely older than Iden, with a fluffy scarlet scarf wrapped around her neck. Mulder walked into the woods with her, letting her lead the way, on and on for over half an hour until they came upon the dead patches of trees.

"Do you think Harry was happy, when it was over?" April asked.

Mulder had no answers for her. He walked until the treehouse came into view, and then stopped, that bitter cold assaulting him again. "You have to go alone from here."

April walked up to the treehouse, put her hand on the base of the ladder, and vanished.

He stood there for a long time, just watching, hoping for any sign that this terrible phenomena was resolved. He grew gradually warmer, and felt the sun on his neck, and the butterflies in his stomach quieted down. It seemed the deep winter surrounding the old treehouse was fading, giving way slowly. Mulder hoped that it was Declan finding peace in the wake of the tragedy that gripped his family. But it was only that, only hope, because no other sign came. Mulder stood there, swaying from one foot to the other, and saw nothing thereafter but a treehouse in a shady clearing.

XxX

"You just left it there?"

"I had a feeling it was over. If a kid goes missing in fifteen years, the local police already know where to find them. We can only hope now."

Iden was obviously displeased with his answer. She leaned hard into the window, putting her many questions in order. "What happened, anyway? Why was it like that? Why was the treehouse hurting people? Who was that man I saw in the woods?"

With all the preparation that went into leaving California, they had hardly had time to explain everything to Iden. Consequently he had been given a lot of time to figure out how he would say it, how to explain such an awful circumstance to a nine-year-old – and time to get the approval of his partner, who was pretending to peruse a book.

"His name was Declan. He lost his son, Harrison, in a tragic accident involving the treehouse, and the scarf you saw. It tore his family apart."

"So he was a ghost?"

Mulder had not seen Declan that day in the woods, and even with the terror of what was happening with Scully, he doubted he would miss a 'glass man' standing among the trees. If it had been a ghost, he would have seen it. Iden insisted the man was there and he trusted her – but what could it have been?

He was trying to work up his answer when Scully set her book down and asked, "Did you see a little girl with brown hair?"

Iden shook her head, puzzled, and Mulder wondered, "Why?"

"It was just something Sarah said at the hospital." Scully was gaunt, the bruised skin of her neck making her face and collar seem unnaturally pale. Mulder thought she could have used a day to rest before the flight, but she refused to stay in the hospital any longer. "She thinks she saw her friend Henri, the one who died. She thinks Henri was there protecting her in the woods. I wanted to know if… you saw her. Either of you."

Iden shrugged again, "No. I just saw Sarah."

"Your movie is starting," Mulder said, pointing out the screen on the headrest of the seat in front of them. He dug her headphones from their bag and waited until she was plugged in to murmur to Scully, "So you believe in ghosts now, huh?"

Scully gave him a harassed look, "I didn't say that."

He smiled, reaching over to run his fingers gently over her fresh bruises. Scully moved to stop him, but then only ran her fingers over his wrist, and rested her head against the seat.

"But the doctor did say something… odd." She looked at Iden, making sure the little girl was worlds away, and said, "Sarah should have died a day or two before we found her. He said there was no way, with her advanced dehydration and hypothermia, that she could survive and make such a quick recovery."

"Maybe it was Henri, or maybe she has a guardian angel."

Scully seemed unsettled by both of those answers. She shifted sideways, resting her head on his shoulder and wincing a little as her neck shifted. "Do you think this is over, Mulder?"

In their last few hours in California, while Iden sat with a recovering Sarah and Mulder and Scully got the rest of their things packed at the hotel, he had told her about his talk with April and their walk through the woods. It was hard to tell how much of it she believed, but she was obviously moved by the truth. Scully was so warm, so loving, so hopeful.

"I hope it is."

Mulder sat in silence, tempted to sleep, but mostly caught in a tired state of curiosity. He thought about the Wright family, wondering if he should call Liam and tell him the true story, or if he should get the papers to release a statement that the obituary and the town were wrong to spread the lie that Declan had killed his son. But he also wondered if it even mattered anymore, now that the family seemed to have found peace. It would be selfish of him to stir that up. He thought of Bill, too, and hope that Matthew would be alright after what he witnessed. He hoped Sarah would make a full recovery, that she would climb over the mountain of grief that Henri had left her.

He also allowed a sparing thought of his own peculiar experiences, how he saw ghosts wherever he went, how his mind rebelled against this impossible thing.

His life was full of impossibilities right now.

XxX

 **END OF EPISODE 3: THE REAPER.**

 _Next time on the X-Files…_

 **Episode 4: The Widow Tree** : When a local 'witching' festival goes down in flames, Scully and Mulder must discover the true cause before vandalism turns into murder.


End file.
